A Season of Transplanting

well good morning everyone it is so good to see each and every one of you here this morning as a reminder my name is Dawson Rush and I serve as the student ministry director here at South Suburban Christian Church and it's just a blessing and a joy to get to be with you in worship this morning now this morning as Keith said we we talked about it we're talking about sort of a season of transplanting but really I think when you get to the core of it and the core of kind of the theme of the day is transition we're we're transitioning in life uh for those of you in here you four seniors who are graduating high school you're transitioning you're entering a new place in life a new season in life there's going to be new excitements new joys new fears new things to explore right that's going to be great parents you are transitioning right now you're transitioning your relationship is going to look different right because your kids are going to be off somewhere else in college and that just changes things but it's not just those people in this room who are going through or who are preparing for transitions maybe some of you in here are thinking about transitioning into a new role a new place of of uh work or vocation or you're transitioning where you live let me be honest Jessica and I are going through that one right now we started packing up boxes last night we're moving to a new place we're excited about it but there's some anxiety that comes with transitions we we become really happy with the way that things are we don't want things to change and the reason for that is when we've been in a season for a while we start to kind of tie our identity to that season of life the things that we do the things that we have in our life at this moment we feel like those things define us i I remember when I was graduating from high school back in the yester year of 2019 um I was deeply involved in athletics in high school i was a three sport athlete i played football in the fall and then I uh wrestled in the winter and then I ran track in the spring and if you're wondering how could a person do all that it's because I went to a tiny high school out in rural Colorado and if you didn't go out for every sport there would not have been teams okay so you ended up playing a lot of sports and in a lot of ways I felt like my worth and my value and my identity was so tied up in athletics because I'd been successful in athletics and I had really enjoyed my time competing in athletics and now as I was getting ready to go off to college that was gone for me it it was going to be a totally new thing and that made me nervous because I'm like what what will my life look like without wrestling what will it look like without football and so while I was excited about the transition there were also things that I was nervous about and here's my hope today here's my hope is that as we look at Psalm 1 together what we're going to see is that as people of faith we do not have to fear transition and the reason we don't have to fear transitions in life transitions in seasons of life is because our purpose our value our worth our dignity is not rooted in the things that we do but it is rooted in a relationship with God now we're going to be looking at Psalm 1 today and maybe like me when you first started studying the book of Psalms which as a reminder is sort of like the himynel of the Old Testament right these are it's a collection of all of these poems that Israelites would have used when they gathered together to worship and if you're like me maybe you assumed that the reason Psalm 1 is Psalm 1 is because it's the oldest Psalm right so Psalm 1's the oldest psalm Psalm 2 is the second oldest psalm and so on and so forth throughout all 151 Psalms but as you actually start to study the book more closely you learn that this is not the case uh the psalms have not been arranged in a sort of chronological order but they have been ordered intentionally and so it matters that this poem that we're going to look at today is the first one in the book there is something here that the organizers of the book of Psalms want us to see they think it's so important for us to understand before we interact with the rest of the book and I'm excited to explore that with you this morning and so uh if you will turn with me to Psalm 1 it's in the handouts that you received it's also going to be up here on the screen or if you have your own Bible that's great but we're going to be in Psalm 1 and we're going to start with just the first line of the poem in verse one here's what it says 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 okay what's going on here so the first thing that the psalmist or the the author of the poem has done is they've introduced two types of people the first one is the blessed one or some translations say the happy one is the idea being communicated here now interestingly that person is singular the blessed one but the other group of people in the poem are in the plural isn't that interesting who does not walk in the way of the or with the wicked plural or stand in the way that sinners plural take or sit in the company of mockers plural and what the psalmist is communicating here is that oftent times being this blessed person being this happy person is going to feel isolating it's going to feel lonely it's going to feel like you're pushing against the grain of everyone else in the culture around you and that can be really really hard but then it raises another question for us which is this what is the blessed person doing that is allowing them to be blessed that's allowing them to be happy in contrast to the wicked and the sinners and the mockers what are they doing that's making them so different and that's what the psalmist answers in verse two look with me there but whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night so what the blessed person is doing that's different than everybody else is that they are meditating on God's law now the underlying word there for law is a Hebrew word Torah right torah and well here's what happens a lot of times people uh have this idea of what it means when they hear the word God's law and I think for a lot of people the main connotation they have of God's law is negative they think of God's law as this sort of oppressive set of rules and regulations that are designed to so that we don't have any fun or so that we don't get to do the things that we want or maybe you've heard this famous one i' I've heard it a lot of times before well God's law is the 613 uh commands that show up in uh the biblical books of Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy right that's what God's law is here's here's my hope in if you take nothing else out from this section understand this that is not at all what Torah or law means to an ancient Israelite to the person who is writing and reading this psalm that is not what that means at all in fact when you read the New Testament one of the reasons that Jesus gets so fired up when he's talking to the Pharisees is because the Pharisees are the ones who are promoting this idea that all that to all that law is is these commands and these dos and these do nots and Jesus is mad about that because that is not the understanding that they are supposed to have instead what Torah is is everything that is in the first five books of the Bible genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy if when you ever look at a Hebrew Bible that is the Torah those whole five books and everything that's included within them the account of creation in Genesis 1 the account of the fall of humanity in Genesis 3 the the story of Noah and the ark the story of Joseph and his brothers all of that is included in Torah and all of that is material that this person is meditating on let me let me be clear what this person is not doing is sitting alone in a cave somewhere silently looking at 613 commands going "Do not boil a young goat kid in its own mother's milk yes this is good this is what I am to be doing in my life." That's not at all what they're doing they're sitting there and they're reading scripture they're reading Genesis 1 and they're saying "I'm created in the image of God." That's incredible that's unbelievable god made a covenant with us with my people in spite of our wickedness in spite of our failures in spite of our stiff nakedness God loves us still that's incredible what does it look like to shape my life according to that truth that's what it means to meditate on God's law on the law of the Lord and now the Lord all caps there that's God's name that's the name Yahweh which is his relational covenant name with

Israel everything about this is relational to meditate on God's law is not to sit around thinking about dos and do nots to meditate on God's law is to intentionally read study search God's word to understand the truths that are contained in it and to live those truths out in our lives in fact the the word there for meditate it's a really bad translation i kind of have problems with what the NIV has done here and here's why uh when you study the the history of the word underneath there what you find is it it actually has a vocal component like we think of meditation as a silent activity but really the idea here is actually reading the words out loud to oneself to study them well to understand them to live them out okay so that's what this person is doing that the other people are not the blessed person the happy person they are meditating and delighting in God's word but what's the result of that look with me in verse three that person is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither whatever they do prospers whatever they do

prospers and so this person the result of seeking after a relationship God with God by studying and and through meditating on his word and the truth of that word what that's allowing this person to be is like a tree that's planted by streams of water here's the first interesting thing I see there is that the the roo uh the verb planted is a passive verb here's what that means if I had a ball and I throw the ball the active way of saying that is Dawson threw the ball right i'm actively doing the action the passive way to phrase that is the ball was thrown it received the action and what's happening to the tree here in the poem is it's being planted by streams of water and it is God that is doing that work it is God that has reached out and established relationship it is God that has made the covenant with the people it is God that has given them the Torah that they can meditate on it and study it like that was all God's

work so that we have this passive idea that God is the one who's establishing relationship with us and what that allows us to do is to bear fruit to bear fruit what does it mean to do that it means to live our lives in such a way that we are in right relationship with God right relationship with other people and have right relationship with creation these are the three things for which humanity was created to have a relationship with God as our creator as the ruler of creation to have relationship with one another and to have relationship with God's creation as we steward it as we care for it as we love it and love each other and love God well and the result of that is fruit people are kind to each other people are patient with one another people are gracious to each other people don't steal from one another people don't kill one another these are the fruit that we

see which yields fruit its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither the cool thing about a tree that's planted next to a stream of water is that it doesn't it's not reliant on rainfall to produce now in the land of Israel uh it was very different from other places in the ancient world especially from Egypt you see in Egypt the Nile River floods on a very predictable and regular schedule and so what the Egyptians figured out is well we know roughly the time each year that the uh River Nile is going to flood and we can plan for that in how we grow our crops but in the land of Israel it was much more it either rains or we die like those are the two options that we kind of feel like we have in the land of Israel this is why for so many of Israel's neighbors they worshiped a god called Ball and Bal was the god of thunderstorms and rain because these people said "We need rain to grow our crops to survive." And so the most important god to us in our whole pantheon of gods is the rain god but what's cool about a tree that's planted by streams is it's not dependent on that regardless of the circumstances around that tree it will continue to produce it will continue to grow it will continue to thrive it will continue to bear fruit for people around it and here's the first key takeaway here's the first big thing I want us to see god plants us by streams of water so we can grow in every season god plants us by streams of water so that we can grow in every season the idea here is that it's not the circumstances around us that define us that will define our lives or define how we're living regardless of the transition that we're going through regardless of whatever's going on in life around us that's not what allows us to thrive and bear fruit what allows us to thrive and bear bear fruit is that we've been planted by streams of water so that we can grow in every season and now seniors here is your deeply practical takeaway when you go off to college and you're studying all of the things do not hear me do not neglect to study God's

word i'm going be really honest with you as we look at data as churches look at data one of the most common places most common transitions and seasons of life where people deconstruct their Christian faith and end up walking away from a relationship with God is in college the data bears this out we see it happen and I think one of the key underlying factors of that factors of that is that you're in college and you're studying all these things and you're learning so much but if you're not rooted in God's

word you're not planted by the streams of living water you're not gaining the nutrients you're not getting the things that you need to continue thriving wherever we are rooted whatever we are meditating on will shape us and so seniors as you go off into this next season meditate study God's word parents that goes for you too and guess what for everyone sitting in this auditorium that goes for you too we need to be meditating we need to be studying God's word okay so we've seen this blessed person we've seen how they're living their life differently than everyone else around them by meditating on God's word and we've seen that the result of that is that they are planted they're a tree planted by streams of water and they're thriving producing life regardless of season regardless of circumstance but what about the other people that were mentioned earlier what about the wicked what are they like what are their lives like well that's what the psalmist picks up in the second sort of half of this uh poem so look with me at verses four through six not so the wicked they are like chaff that the wind blows away therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous but the way of wicked leads to destruction so we're still talking about agriculture here the first part of the agriculture was a tree right we're talking about like an orchard we're picking fruit here though we're talking about producing grain this idea of chaff anybody know what chaff is i again I grew up on a farm so I know what chaff is but I didn't expect it to be a to be a broad bit of knowledge in the room here's how it works in the first century uh you you go and you harvest all of your grain whether it's barley or whether it's wheat and you bring it to what's called a threshing floor and at the threshing floor what you do is you separate out all of the actual kernels of whatever grain you've just harvested out from the rest of the plant but it's all of it's still intermixed on the floor at this point the seeds are loose but there's still all the stems and leaves and other stuff around there and so what you do if you're a first century farmer is you wait for a really windy day and then you take a pitchfork and you go around on the floor of your of your uh threshing floor and you throw it up in the air and what happens is the actual seeds kernels of grain are heavy enough that they fall back down and they land on the floor and you can then collect them grind them into flour and make them into bread but all of the other stuff the stuff that you don't need the stuff that isn't useful to you it blows away that's the chaff and so when the Bible and it uses it all the time this uses this image of chaff the idea is something that's not valuable something that's not good for producing and sustaining life the way that the actual seeds of grain are it's not valuable like a tree that's planted by streams of water why because the wicked are not rooted in meditating on God's word and so here's how they're living however they want to regardless of how it impacts other people the the goal of their life is not right relationship with God right relationship with other people and right relationship with creation the goal of their life is whatever's right to me whatever I think is good for me and the result is they actually don't care if other people suffer as long as they feel like they're getting what's right and the result is that compared to this productive tree that's producing fruit they're like chaff that's worthless it's blown away in the wind and then we get a we get an idea of how this is going to play out in the sort of ultimate analysis of life is that they will not stand in the judgment they will not be in the assembly of the righteous it says "For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked leads to destruction." And so here's the burning question at least for me okay Psalm 1 okay author of Psalm 1 i I sort of get what you're saying right i I want to be the blessed one i I want to be the person who's meditating on God's law and who's planted by streams of water and who's producing fruit but why is that in the singular and why is the sinners and the wicked why is that all plural and here's what's going to happen it is not always readily apparent that the righteous person is the one who is thriving as you read the rest of the entire book of Psalms there are many psalms where the opening lines of the psalm are basically the psalmist going "Hey God the wicked people are winning and they're doing really really good and they're winning all the wars and they have all the money and they have all the political power and I and I just feel like nothing that I can do is is is doing anything to stop them." But in every single one of those psalms do you know how the psalmist ends he says "But God I trust you god I trust you that ultimately you're going to take care of me and you're going to take care of them in a way that is good." Why because Psalm one is true because it has set us up for that and here's the last bit of good news from this last part of the poem it says "Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous plural for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous plural but the way of the wicked leads to destruction." that even though there may be seasons and times in life where we feel alone as those who are trying to have relationship with God trying to have right relationship with God and right relationship with others and right relationship with creation that ultimately we are not fully

alone here's what I want you to see here whatever our season of life our purpose is to pursue the way of righteousness and that word righteousness just means like I've said right relationship with God right relationship with other people right relationship with creation whatever our season of life that is our purpose as human beings is to pursue the way of righteousness

going back to the idea of now righteous being plural seniors hear me again when you go off to college please please please during that first couple of orientation weeks when it's all just syllabuses and hanging out with other people and all of the other sort it's not gotten hard yet listen to me find a local church and plug into it find a community of people who are committed to studying God's word to having right relationship with God to having right relationship with each other and pursuing a right relationship with God's creation find that this is again the first I think major reason that so many college students deconstruct is because they neglect studying and understanding God's word and the second reason so many college students deconstruct is because they do not plug in to a community of

faith listen to me please find a church to plug into parents of those seniors you're in a season of transition and relationship here but let me tell you it is okay to lovingly when they come home for Thanksgiving break ask "Hey have you found a local church to belong to yet?" In fact I think it's very good to ask that question very healthy to ask that question this is a way that you can continue to guide continue to direct continue to encourage faith development in your students as they go on as they transition to this next season of life and here's where I want to close we've talked about this way of righteousness pursuing the way of righteousness but you might be asking Dawson how do I start how do I start what does it look like to begin on the way of righteousness here's the truth righteousness is found in a trusting relationship in Jesus righteousness is found in a trusting relationship with Jesus you want to hear the broad story of the Bible here it goes human beings are created by God to have right relationship with him to have right relationship with one another to have right relationship with creation according to God's design and purposes which are good but unfortunately humanity decides to choose for themselves what is good and the result of that is is that instead of producing life the way they were supposed to they produce death and the result of that is that they are separated from a right relationship with God separated from a right relationship with one another and separated with a right relationship from creation but God in his infinite wisdom and mercy and love came down to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and he showed us what it means to have right relationship with God he showed us what it looks like to have right relationship with one another and with creation but he wasn't just content with showing us he wanted us to have it again and so Jesus goes to the cross and he suffers and he dies and then three days later he rises up from the grave and in response if we trust in that if we trust in Jesus in his resurrection in his role as Lord and as Savior guess what we get to have again righteousness right relationship with God right relationship with one another and right relationship with creation seniors as you enter this new season pursue righteousness parents as you transition to this new season pursue righteousness south Sub Church regardless of the season of your life pursue righteousness that is found in a relationship with Jesus Christ let's pray god we thank you so much that we can gather here together that we can hear your word that we can worship you God god I pray for each and every person in this room god that we would meditate on your word that we would study it that we would seek to understand it and that we would seek to live it out in our daily lives and God I pray that as we face transitions and seasons of life that we could be like the tree that is planted by streams of water just continuing to thrive continuing to grow continuing to yield fruit in and out of

season and God I pray especially for these

seniors as they make this jump as they make this transition in life god would they pursue righteousness through a relationship with Jesus Christ would they meditate and study your word would they find a local community of believers to plug into and study the word together with God may they pursue the path the way of righteousness pray all of this in Jesus name amen