Seasons: Your Root Determines Your Fruit
Pastor Rollan Fisher
With Whom You Walk
On What You Stand
Where You Are Seated
With Whom You Walk
In each season, God wants you to be discerning regarding the counsel you receive.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
-Psalm 1:1-6
“People have presuppositions... By 'presuppositions' we mean the basic way that an individual looks at life- his worldview. The grid through which he sees the world. Presuppositions rest upon that which a person considers to be the truth of what exists. A person's presuppositions provide the basis for their values- and therefore the basis for their decisions.”
-Francis A. Schaeffer
The counsel of the wicked is sin-loving and approving. It does not encourage obedience to Christ in such things as love, purity and faithfulness, but instead endorses a spirituality that remains independent, self-sufficient and self-focused.
In every season, God has a purpose and a plan, whether it is in:
Finding the job you were going to take after years and thousands of dollars of education.
Marriage
Starting a family
Shepherding Teenagers
Beginning life as empty nesters or in retirement
We must seek him in the counsel of his word and people for that plan.
2“but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”
On What You Stand
In each season, you stand on that which you meditate. God wants you to stand on his eternal, Holy Word full of good promises. The way of sinners is simply an existence not rooted in the life of Christ as our Creator and Lord.
Jesus is both gentle and gracious. He is also all wise and all powerful. Christ calls both the strong and the weak to repentance and faith that times of refreshing might come from him.
“Christ is sufficient. We do not need “support groups” for each and every separate tribulation. The most widely divergent sorrows may all be taken to the foot of the same old rugged cross and find there cleansing, peace, and joy. “
-Elisabeth Elliot
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
-Psalm 1:3-4
Where You Are Seated
In each season, your root determines your fruit. When seated perpetually in Christ, you will bear the good fruit of God’s promises in season.
Seat of Scoffers -
people begin to become cynical and mock the counsel of God because the seasons are longer than we would like (think the Chicago winter). We begin to gravitate instead to the quick fix or “get rich quick” mentality. What we need is an investor’s mindset. Before you ever see fruit, plants have a well-established root system from which they draw life-sustaining nutrients.
“I think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no one believes that God invests His power in the Bible. Everyone is looking for power in a program, in a methodology, in a technique, in anything and everything but that in which God has placed it—His Word. He alone has the power to change lives for eternity, and that power is focused on the Scriptures.”
-R.C. Sproul, The Prayer of the Lord
We must give God’s promises the time to work. They bear fruit in season, as we are faithful to remain rooted in his commandments and ways.
This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
-2 Peter 3:1-13
“It is not what we do that matters, but what a sovereign God chooses to do through us. God doesn't want our success; He wants us. He doesn't demand our achievements; He demands our obedience. The Kingdom of God is a kingdom of paradox, where through the ugly defeat of a cross, a holy God is utterly glorified. Victory comes through defeat; healing through brokenness; finding self through losing self.”
-Charles Colson
The sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross for our forgiveness and His subsequent resurrection from the dead makes a way for an eternal season of fruitfulness for all who turn from their sin and believe the good news.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
-Ephesians 2:1-10
Second City Church - Seasons - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2019