Matthew 22:34-40
January 15, 2006
Sermon by Rev. Barry Hidey

I think that most of you know by now that I like to grow things. I know I have heard people tell their disaster stories about growing plants. People have said, “Well, I don’t have a green thumb – every plant that I touch - dies.”

So is it just a natural gift? You either have a green thumb or you don’t? When I think about that. how many times have we announced that we can’t do something? Someone shares with us their hobby or their interest or their skill or something that they do well, and we say, “Well, I could never do that! You’ve got the natural talent or gift to do that, but I just don’t have what it takes.”

If we really take a look at things we do well, we realize that we all start out as a learner.

So I began to think about this idea of what a learner is all about, putting down roots. I began to think, well, how did I learn to grow things? I grew up living next-door to my grandparent’s farm, so growing things was what everybody did. My Dad had a half-acre garden in the backyard and so we grew tomatoes, wax beans, strawberries, squash, potatoes, cantaloupes, watermelon, rhubarb, and turnips. We had peach, apple and pear trees. One of my earliest memories with my Dad is in the garden with him showing me how to plant wax beans. He started by hammering two poles at either end of the garden and tying a string between those poles. And then he said, you take the hoe and you move it down the row next to the string so you have a straight row one end to the other, and it’s about two inches deep. And then we would take out a can of 10-10-10 fertilizer and just put the right amount, sprinkling it as we walked along the row. Then he said, you drag the back of the hoe along the path so that you would cover up the fertilizer a little bit so that when the seedlings begin to grow, they won’t be burned by the fertilizer.

Well, all this seemed a lot of bother because I just wanted to throw some seeds into the ground and watch something grow, but each time he explained to me the reasons why, and of course I ignored years later. Why do you need this string and these two poles? I can do pretty good figuring out what’s straight, and I had some interesting rows up and down my garden that curved like a stream.

So I began to figure this out, and so I learned how to cut a potato to plant it. How to plant cantaloupes in hills, and how much fertilizer to use, at that point it was a pile of cow manure from the barnyard. As I look back over all this, I saw how I was the learner and my Dad was the teacher. Soon, I was able to do all of these things by myself. I learned which kind of seed needed to be planted a certain depth or a certain way, and when the tomatoes needed to be staked, and weeds to hoe, plants to be watered, and trees to be pruned and finally, produce to be picked.

There is nothing so wonderful than to see the produce, the fruit, happen from what you’ve learned and what you’ve put into practice. So when Sarah and Rachel were old enough, I took them out to the garden and went through the same routines with them.

It takes patience to be a teacher. It takes desire to be a learner but the results are always worth it. Great production, great fruit, great results.

Last week, I told you that when we become a follower of Jesus Christ, we start a journey that leads to life transformation. I shared about how this journey isn’t just about getting saved; it isn’t just about believing certain things. It’s taking all those things together and realizing it’s a life-long process of transformation, a life change. Our destination is that we all become Christ-like, that people begin to look at us and they see Jesus in a new way. Our goal on this Jesus Journey is to be changed. We want to act and look like Jesus more and more. So each of the next seven weeks, we are going to look at a practice, or a trait, a behavior, a tool that we will help you be more like Jesus. This week, it is learner.

If you would get out the brochure that we have put in your bulletin today, called The Jesus Journey-Seven Things to Pack., we’re going to talk about the first thing that needs to be in your backpack this morning, and it’s that we need to be a learner.

1. What is a learner?
You see on the first page there, we have the definition of learner, and I want us to read this together.
A learner grows intentionally in knowledge and wisdom of the Lord, Jesus Christ.
Well, you need to know what a learner is; it’s probably not a surprise definition. But really, as we begin to figure out these seven discipleship traits that we’re going to explain to you over the next seven weeks, we’ve been working on this for the last couple of years. The staff and the ad council leaders, we came up with definition because we see that a learner grows. A learner puts down roots. A learner needs a tool to be able to dig into the word of God so that we have strong roots in what God is doing.

2. Why be a learner?
That is the question that you need to have answered this morning because it’s only when we understand that, that we will make the choice to be a learner. Because our goal this morning is not that you’ll come away with a great definition; our goal and purpose out of this morning’s worship service is that you will leave here having decided to take your next step as a learner.

The first reason we should be a learner is because a learner is an essential part of the first and greatest commandment. We are learners because it is a great way that we love God.

a. We love God with our mind!
We heard that in the gospel lessons when “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' Matthew 22:40

Now, it’s easy for us to say, I know I need to love God with all my heart and with my hands, and my arms, and my feet. That we want to serve God, but that isn’t enough! We need to love God with every part of ourselves, and so we love God when we use our mind as well as our heart and our soul!

Donald Whitney in his book “Spiritual Disciplines within the Church,“ says, ”Loving God with all your mind means loving God with what you mentally initiate.”

i. Mentally Initiate.
Whitney describes our mind as a garden. If you think of your mind as a garden, then the things we mentally initiate are the plants that we purposefully put in the garden of our mind, things that we go out of our way to bring into our mind. This is where we start as a learner. This is why you are here today. You are here today because you realize that you don’t have it all figured out. You are here today because you realize there are some times in life that you just don’t know what to do. There are struggles and challenges in your life that you don’t know how to face. So realize if I don’t know how to face that, I need to learn how to do that. So you’re here today in this worship service to learn how to relate to God in a new way, to learn some things through the scripture readings, through the message, through the hymns. We’re here today because we want to learn. You’re here today because you want to plant some seeds, some seeds of God’s words into your life, for you’ve been reading the Bible, and you’ve been trying to figure some things out. Part of worship’s role is to water so that those seeds can grow and bear fruit.

But there’s more to learning than just worship and reading the Bible; there are others way in which we can plant seeds in our mind. There are good books that we need, good Christian books. The reason we have this library is that we want to enable you to grow in learning. So you’ll see on the inside of your Jesus Journey brochure, there’s a list a books there that we recommend that are helpful for you. The ones that have the asterisk next to them are the ones that we already have in our library, and we’re working to get the rest in there. The library team has set up outside the library a display of books each week that will tie into what we are learning about in this series. We don’t want to make it hard for you to learn; we’re trying to make it as easy as possible. We made sure they’re all still in print, so go out there, and you can find them online. Buy one and start there.

Not only that, not just what we read, but it’s important what we listen to. We know how much a great tape or CD of hymns or praise songs or contemporary Christian music, how those things help to plant those good things in our mind.

So learners plant the right things in their mind – so you can put down deep roots.

You express your love for God with your mind by what you…
ii. Mentally cultivate.
Now, I have yet to grow a weed-free garden. Any out there have a weed-free garden, never have any weeds in your garden at all? No. I was hoping you could help, come over my house, and I have a job for you. But I’ve always had that experience of every time I plant something, there’s these other things that grow along the way. My Dad was very clear how important weeding was to a productive garden. He would make sure that I learned what a bean seedling looked like; Barry look at these, how these two leaves there, that’s a bean. So anything else around it is a weed. You leave the beans there, and you pull everything else up. And isn’t that what we try to teach you in the church? That’s why we spent a year in the word of God, because we’re saying there are certain truths that we need to understand. When we know truth, then we can figure out what isn’t truth, what is false, and the things in our life that we can pull up and throw into the burn pile because we don’t need that in our lives.

My Dad also told me that it’s not just a matter of pulling up weeds, but I have to regularly cultivate the soil. I need to go down the row and hoe and loosen up the soil because the ground gets pretty packed up. When the rain hits it, it’ll run off, but when you loosen it up, it allows the rain to come through, and it keeps weeds from growing and gets rid of the small weeds.

So, we find that we have some tough soil, some hard soil, in our brains, don’t we? Our world is constantly sending a message, pounding us with materialism and what their definition of sex, values and success. And so we have to fight a world, and we realize that the only way that we can loosen up our brain to put in the right things of God’s word. This loosens up the soil of our brain so the good things of God can put down their roots. We do this by digging into the word of God, having godly conversations, participating in worship services, prayer, small groups, and asking good questions.

I think that Paul summed this up pretty good when he reminded us that we need to make sure our mind is cultivating the right stuff.

Listen to how The Message bible explains Phil 4:8.
“Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious--the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.

A learner seeks to use their mind to love God. David in Psalm 1 expounds on this idea of filling our mind and meditating on God’s word. “Instead you thrill to God’s Word; you chew on Scripture day and night” Psalm 1:2 (MSG)

To be honest, we know a lot more than we ever do, is that not true? We know the right things to do. We just need to learn how to apply it. We’ve got to make those choices, so over the next seven weeks we’re going to give you pieces of that puzzle that will help you to learn how to apply, to learn how to live, to learn how to put down roots. It’s not just getting the facts correct; it’s living our life in a different way.

And so how does that happen? Another reason we need to be a learner, is that we need to get rooted.
b. We get rooted.
I guess I was about 14 when the farm next to us was sold, and so I heard the roar of engines one morning and rode my bike down the lane to the edge of our property and looked out to where they were clearing the land to put some warehouses or buildings on it. So, I saw this one stand of trees that this little bulldozer was attacking, and there was this one tree that it was trying to take out. It hit that tree and the tree would shake, but it stood its ground. It would back up and come back and try to speed up and time and again, it tried to take out this tree, but it failed because the root system went down deep enough. It was in this stand of trees, I believe, those trees, those roots that intertwined, and so it quit. It had to go after bigger equipment went I left.

Psalm 1:3, explains about why this root system is so strong. It says, They are like a tree planted by streams of water.” Where this tree has put down roots and having that source deep, of a stream that provides everything that it needs. So we understand that we need to put roots deep into the word of God. The life of the tree is in the root system that keeps it from being blown over or uprooted. This Psalm teaches us that every tree needs a source of strength and nourishment. For a tree, it is water, for the learner it is the Bible.

For the learner on the Jesus Journey, we understand that the Bible is that source of nourishment for us. When we become a learner, we choose to be a student of God’s word. That is how we get rooted!

Paul uses a similar image, we heard it as the choir put this passage to music this morning, in Ephesians 3: 16.
May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love.
As learners, we become rooted and grounded in God’s love. That’s the message the Bible gives us, that God sent his son, so much that he, he was willing to die for us because of God’s for us. So as we learn it and live it, we put down roots that can withstand the challenges of this world.

Many times when we would plant a tree in one of the orchards, we took great care of where we planted to make sure it was good soil, to make sure that there was a good environment for it to grow. We also prepared the soil. We made sure the roots weren’t hurt in the process.

That is why we spent a year reading the Bible together. That’s why we invite people to join Beginnings as they first come to this church or want to start that journey. That’s why we have Disciple Bible Study, why we have Faith in Community each Sunday, after each worship service, so that you can get deeper into God’s word. It is that root system of sound biblical truth that will make the changes in our lives. It’s not just what we know about the Bible, it is about what you do about what you know!

Next, we need to be a learner because….
C. We get good fruit
Let’s be clear, God is all about fruit! God has fruit that will grow in your life when you put down roots into his word.

And the fruit comes in its season, at God’s timing, and all we need to do is to nurture it, allow it to grow. I can remember, next to my garden we had this burn pile, the burn can, and next to it was the compost pile where we brought all the stuff out from the kitchen and leaves and grass. I noticed that this seedling was growing there, and many times I’d just pull them up because you don’t know what it’s going to produce, but this time I said I’ll just let it grow. I noticed from its leaves that it that it was a peach tree. So I would water it. It got lots of nutrients because it was right there by the compost pile, and pruned it and sprayed it. So finally about its third spring I noticed these blossoms began to appear on the tree, and I continued to take care of it.

That summer, I had the biggest Georgia Belle peaches that I’d ever seen! So my family encouraged me to enter them in the MD State Fair, and I had the best Georgia Belle peaches in all of Maryland that year.

As I look out over you this morning, I want to remind you what Psalm 1 says, that you will “bear fruit each season without fail.” I want you to believe in yourself to know that indeed God has planted things in your life that will bear fruit. Now, we know that it takes some time; we know it doesn’t happen automatically. Three years typically for a fruit tree, much less for a tomato plant-just in one season. The challenge is, are you putting yourself in the position to allow God to produce that fruit in your life? That’s what this is all about, folks, because we believe that there are things that God wants to produce in your life, but it’s not happening yet. Sometimes it’s because we haven’t put you in the position to learn, and sometimes it’s because you have chosen to become dormant. It’s not winter in the spiritual growth cycle; it’s a time for growth. So we need to figure out….maybe we’ve grown comfortable. Maybe there are some struggles in our life, and we’ve given up hope for growth in our lives. But we see things differently, and we want you to believe that as a learner, there is fruit in your life. We’re not going to pull you up and throw you on the burn pile because we believe that indeed, that God is growing something powerful and something wonderful in your life. There’s fruit ready to grow in your life.

So as a church, we want to give you things that will nourish you. There will be times where you need to be pruned. There will be times over these series where we’re going to push you, to challenge you, because you need something to be cut off as the pruning comes along, so that we can focus on where the strength needs to be. I could never understand my uncle, when he would trim the trees and things he would cut. He said, “No I’m just wanting to make sure, this is a great branch, and this is where the fruit’s going to come.” So we cut off all that stuff, that’s just the suckers, as he called them. Folks, we have too many things in our lives that are pulling away strength from what God wants to do. We need to make some tough choices. You need to make some choices whether this is just another great sermon, to be inspired and do nothing, or you’re going to walk through this and take this seriously because God has fruit in your life that’s waiting to pick.

So we need to put down roots in God’s word, so make the decision to grow!

Another reason to be a learner is that…
d. We can stand the heat.
There is nothing worse than a drought for a farmer. I don’t know how many hours I have spent watering the garden, carrying buckets of water, to newly planted shrubs and trees. It’s a difficult process, but plants need water to grow. It’s a precious commodity. Leaves can wither; grass browns up, plants shrivel up, production decreases. Fungus, disease, insects, weeds seem to have a bigger effect during a drought.

Yet, we have this unbelievable promise in Psalm 1:3, the next part of that verse. It says if we plant ourselves in God’s word, that ‘Their leaves never wither! What a wonderful promise! Similar to what Romans 8:38-39, it’s not in your notes, write it down and read it and keep that promise, it says that nothing is able to separate us from the love of God. That’s a great promise.

As I was having a conversation with Peggy this week, she helped me to realize that as much as that is true, we all know that we go through these times of drying, spiritual dryness in our lives. How do we balance this, this promise that we’ll never wither, but yet we have these times of struggle, of loneliness, of death, of illness, of hurt, and of pain. All these things that seem to draw us away from God, kind of draw the life out of us, times when we question where God is in the midst of pain and hurt, times when our life seems as brittle as our front yards in the midst of an August drought.

Yet, what happens to that front yard after a soaking rain comes? I wake up the next day, and there are signs of life. Before long, this front yard that was brown and we thought was dead is now green again. Because somehow in those roots, they had what was needed. See, when the roots are firmly established, they can get through some of these droughts and dry times and come back.

So it is with us, that how many times in our lives that we’ve been renewed through a time of rain, a worship service, a prayer time, something you’ve read, a comment from a friend, an encouragement from somebody else, and somehow tapped into something that was still there. So these roots allowed us to stay upright in the midst of the winds of life.

Have you learned enough so that your roots go down deep? What steps do you need to take so that your faith doesn’t wither, so that your witness doesn’t wither when you have those difficult times in the workplace? What will you do this week so that you can take your next step??

By putting roots down,
E. We have success
“Those people succeed in everything they do” Psalm 1:3d (CEV)

It was late one night when my Mom got a call from Tom Forsethye. He was the manager of the Fair Lanes Liberty Duckpin Bowling lanes in Randallstown MD. My Mom worked a second job there, and I bowled there several nights a week. He wanted to know if I would be a pinjammer. One of the guys had quit, and they need someone to work a couple of times a week. Now, you might be wondering what a pinjammer is. A pinjammer clears away the pins that jam up the machines; basically it’s the bowling machine mechanic.

Now, if you know me, Barry and mechanic, in the same word just never has connected at any point in my life. I thought it was a joke; he was making fun of me because I was worthless with these things. I knew how to bowl – but I couldn’t fix anything, and this guy wanted to hire me. I got on the phone, and he said, “How do you know that you can’t do this?” I said, “Well, I don’t know anything about machines.” He said, “Well, we will teach you. Are you willing to learn?” My Mom said, “Why not, what do you have to lose?”

So, that summer, I went to the bowling lanes and hung out and listened to the mechanic for about 8 hours a day for the next two weeks. Every time a machine broke down, he’d say, “Look, Barry, what’s wrong? This is how we fix it. Next time you’re going to do it. This is how the belts work, and this is how you repair a belt and replace it, and these are the relays.” Time and again he would show me, and then before long he said, “Ok, Barry, you’re on tonight, and I’m going home. You’re on your own.”

All through college I worked not just there but several other bowling lanes, and I was successful as a pinjammer. And what does a success look like for you? What does a success look like from God’s view in our lives?

I saw it yesterday. I saw it at the funeral of John Packerd as his family stood up here and said, “He was the example to me. He was a humble guy; he loved us.” And as other men talked about the Bible study that he led for years at 7:30AM Sunday mornings, and I said, “That’s success.” You know, there are no great big awards that he has, but there is success in making a difference and being faithful on that journey, impacting others.

See that’s our challenge. That’s the kind of success that God wants in our lives, and it happens because we’re saying, “Hey, you know, I didn’t think I could do this, “ but someone asked us. Many times it’s God, through that process that he says, “Why don’t you try?” Once you’re willing to try, God takes over, and success comes.

3. What is my next step?

Take out your devotional, once again. I want to walk through this with you because each week you’re going to get one of these. I’m thankful for Joni Behrendt; she has created this, and a different staff person is writing these for each week.

So if you open to Day One, it’s very simple. We’ve given you five days. We know there are seven days in a week, so you get off a couple days. You might not get to it right away, but we start tomorrow. We challenge you; the first thing you need to do is read 2 Peter and then follow the commentary that Joni has written there, and then the key part of this is reflect. We want you to think about what you’ve read. We want you to think about what you need to do as she challenges us to talk about what we’ve learned recently studying the scriptures. You might say, “Gee, I haven’t really studied the scripture recently.” So that is what you need to reflect upon….how am I going to be a learner if I’m not spending time in the word of God? Then there’s a prayer that might be your prayer: Lord, give me the desire to “crack your Book” and grow in my understanding.

That might be where you are. So it says there “Use The Journey Path.” So turn to the center section of your devotional there. Notice over on the right hand corner, as I mentioned, there are other resources for your journey that you can buy or use in the library. Then there are two other key pieces to this journey. You’ll see some rocks below the path there. These rocks are beliefs, that we believe that every learner needs to own, starting more basic, and as you get farther along that path, you become more involved, and something that we need to grow toward. So let’s say you’re at that second rock there; it says “I need to read and study the Bible.” That’s really where you are, you circle that. You say, “Ok, that’s where I am. I need to do it.” You go to the top and say, “What behavior do I need to do in order to study and read the word of God?” Well, your behavior may be that I need to get into a Bible study because you’re not currently in a Bible study, and you need to do that. Or maybe there are the spiritual disciplines, like everyday praying or reading your Bible. Wherever you are, we want you to take the next step on the journey. We’ve set this up so that whether you’re just five steps into this journey or five miles, that the challenge is see where you are, and make a decision to go on the next step of the journey. Each week, on each of the seven traits, you’re going to have another opportunity, but folks, the foundation of this is learner. Next week we’re going to talk about worshipper, and part of worshipping is learning what a worshipper is. So if you choose to be a learner, you’re going to be challenged to make a choice because there are seven things along the way.

We’re not asking you to change everything overnight. Do the one thing well. One of the things we’re doing is, if you look at your bulletin, open it up there across from the sermon notes, on the bottom of the flap where the prayer requests are. You’ll see it says “The Jesus Journey: Equipping Conference, March 4.” See, we’re so serious about this that we don’t want you to say, “Well, I don’t know where to go next.” As we finish this series, the last Sunday of February, that following Saturday, we’re having a series of workshops that will be practical application of how to do, whether it’s worshipper or learner or giver or relater, three or four workshops on each of those. Some are beginning workshops, and some are a little bit farther along the way. Each week in this little space there, you’ll see some of the workshops that relate to the topics that we’re covering. Eventually you’ll get that big brochure about all the stuff. We want you to know that we believe in you, and we’re going to resource you and equip you. We don’t want to do business-as-usual. We want to be rooted and grounded, making a difference in all that God is calling us to do and to be.

Would you pray with me?
Oh Lord, there is so much to do, and so many opportunities before us. We thank you that you have given us this word of God. Lord, I pray for these folks today, as they reflect on their next step. Make a difference in their lives. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.