INTRODUCTION:
In Psalm 92 the psalmist
compares evildoers to grass that flourishes for a season and then dies.
But he compares righteous
people to trees—strong and beautiful and long-lived:
The righteous
flourish like the palm tree,
and grow like a
cedar in Lebanon.
They are
planted in the house of the Lord,
they flourish
in the courts of our God.
They still
bring forth fruit in old age,
they will stay
fresh and green,
to show that
the Lord is upright;
he is my Rock,
and there is no
unrighteousness in him.
Before we go on, I want to
get rid of a misunderstanding of the word “righteous.”
If I describe you as
“righteous,” you probably won’t take it as a compliment—because the word
“righteous” has come to mean—to many people—“self-righteous,” sanctimonious, “holier
than thou.”
But that’s not what
“righteous” means in the Bible.
In the Bible “righteous” is
what God is. And a person who is “righteous” is full of goodness, like God. To
be righteous is to be loving and generous, merciful and kind.
When the Bible wants to
praise someone, that’s the word it often uses. Zechariah and Elizabeth, John
the Baptist’s parents, are described as “righteous before the Lord.”
And old Simeon, who took the
baby Jesus in his arms at the Temple, is described as “righteous and devout and
looking for the consolation of Israel.”
In Matthew 25, Jesus
describes the “righteous” as those who feed the hungry, give drink to the
thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit
the prisoners.
One of my favorite verses in
Proverbs reads: “The memory of the
righteous is a blessing” (10.7).
There are people in my past,
who bless me every time I think of them. These are my teachers and my examples,
people who loved me and prayed for me. Their memory blesses me.
The “righteous” are not people who are so good that they
deserve God’s favor. They are not people who have earned their way to heaven. The
“righteous” are people who love God, and who love and serve other people in
practical ways. They are the people through whom God’s goodness shines.
Righteous people know they
are needy, and they live lives of thankfulness to God who has come into their
lives.
Righteous people are people
who sin—and confess their sin—and strive to make corrections in their lives—and
grow into Christlikeness.
I. The writer of this psalm
compares righteous people to two kinds of trees—the palm tree and the cedar of
Lebanon.
A. “The righteous flourish like a palm tree.”
This is the date palm. The
date palm is famous for its beauty.
The lover in the Song of
Songs says to his beloved:
“How fair and
pleasant you are,
O loved one,
delectable maiden!
You are stately
as a palm tree…”
(Song of Songs
7:6-7)
This graceful tree can grow
to 90 feet tall. It is said to be the most useful tree on earth. There are desert
places that would be uninhabitable if it were not for the date palm. It can
grow where no other useful plant will grow.
The date palm is a long-lived
tree. Date palms can still bear fruit when they are more than 100 years old.
The palm tree is a tree of
the desert oasis. It sinks its taproot down deep to draw up the scarce water.
The travel writer H. V.
Morton (who wrote in the 1930s) tells about visiting Siwa, a city of 5000
people, in an oasis in the desert of Egypt.
In Siwa, when Morton visited
it, there were 600,000 date palms. They produced the finest dates in the world.
Their only industry was a
date-packing factory.
They raised a variety of
dates, some a rich gold, some pale yellow, and some reddish brown.
They made a drink from the
sap of the palm trees.
The trunks of the trees
provided their builders with wood.
The wood was also used for
fuel.
Fences were made from palm
fronds, and houses were roofed with them.
From the fiber of the tree
the women made beautiful mats and baskets so closely woven that they would hold
water.
Palm fibers were also used to
make rope.
The hollowed-out trunks of
the date trees were used as pipes to carry water to their canal system.
Their donkeys, which were
remarkable for strength and size, were said to owe their perfect condition to a
diet of dates.
The diet or the poor people
in Siwa was almost entirely dates.
I looked up Siwa on the
Internet encyclopedia and learned that that oasis is still famous for its fine
dates. It is also a favorite tourist destination—a beautiful place to visit. I
would like to go there.
So the beautiful and useful
palm tree symbolizes the beauty and usefulness of believers who have their
roots in God.
B. Next our psalmist compares
God’s righteous people to a cedar of Lebanon: “The righteous flourish like a palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.”
Lebanon cedars don’t grow in
Iowa and are not kin to our red cedar or white cedar trees.
The Lebanon cedar has short
needles, like a fir tree. The branches are layered. Its foliage is lacy. No
tree is more beautiful or more majestic.
The Lebanese are so proud of
their cedars that it is pictured on their flag and it is the logo of their
national airline.
We saw a magnificent cedar of
Lebanon in the cloister of Salisbury Cathedral in England. It was “flourishing
in the courts of our God.”
While the palm tree is
beautiful in its gracefulness, the cedar of Lebanon is magnificent in its
majesty.
The massive trunk of a
Lebanon cedar may be 8 feet in diameter. It can grow to 130 feet tall.
The cedar of Lebanon is also
useful.
Its fragrant wood is the
choicest material for many uses.
In ancient times, it was used
for shipbuilding.
Its beautiful wood was used
for the wooden parts of Solomon’s Temple and in David’s and Solomon’s palaces.
II. So by comparing God’s
people to graceful palm trees and majestic cedars of Lebanon, the psalmist is
saying that God’s righteous people are both beautiful
and useful.
A. We believers may not be
beautiful on the outside, but God looks on the inside, and he loves what he
sees.
The writer of Psalm 90 prays:
“Let the beauty of the Lord our God be
upon us…” God’s people are beautiful with the beauty of Jesus.
Sometimes we sing…
“Let the beauty
of Jesus be seen in me.
All his
wonderful passion and purity.
O thou Spirit
divine, all my nature refine,
Till the beauty
of Jesus is seen in me.”
B. We who are God’s people
are to be a blessing to all around us.
Some trees are beautiful for
their foliage, and some also bear good fruit. We believers are not to be all
foliage—we are also to bear fruit. We are to bear the fruit of kindness and
helpfulness.
And our kindness and goodness
must not be limited to our families and loved ones.
Jesus said, “If you love those who love you, what
credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do
good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinner
do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is
that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
“But
love your enemies do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward
will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the
ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:32-36).
They say, “Charity begins at
home”—but it shouldn’t end there.
III. We, who love the Lord,
are planted in the House of the Lord; we flourish in the courts of our God.
A. The House of the Lord was,
for the psalmist, the beautiful Temple at Jerusalem.
When the psalmists speak of
dwelling in house of God, they are using that as a metaphor for living in
constant communion with God.
That is the meaning in Psalm
23:
Surely goodness
and mercy shall follow me
all the days of
my life,
and I shall
dwell in the House of the Lord forever.
In Psalm 27, the psalmist
says:
One thing have
I asked of the Lord,
that will I
seek after;
that I may
dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of
my life,
to behold the
beauty of the Lord,
and to inquire
in his Temple.
As the psalmist lives in
fellowship with God, he lives in the house of the Lord. He beholds the beauty
of the Lord. He inquires in his Temple.
B. In Ephesians we read that
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ “has
blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”
If we are living in communion
with God—always aware of his presence in our lives—then, in our minds, we are
already partly in heaven, even while we are still on earth.
CONCLUSION
Last comes my favorite part
of the psalm:
“They still bring forth fruit in old age; they will stay fresh and
green.”
How can you, how can I, still
bear fruit in old age? How can we still bless other people when we are old?
We remember the advantages of
youth—and maybe we grieve at what we’ve lost.
But I’ve been thinking
recently about the advantages of being old. Here are some of the advantages of
old age—if we are still walking with God.
1. When we are old, we can
live without illusion. A lot of things we thought were important in our youth,
we now know are not really important—wealth, prosperity, and popularity are not
nearly as important as loving and being loved, or being useful to others.
2. As old people we
understand the meaning of Christ’s words: “It is more blessed to give than to
receive.” And we look back, we take far more satisfaction from what have been
able to give, than from whatever we received.
3. We are rich in
friendships. Even though many of those who are dearest to us are now in Glory,
their memory blesses us. And we know that we will meet them again.
4. We are getting ever closer
to Glory. As we grow weak and are afflicted with pain, we long for Heaven—to be
with Jesus, to hear his welcome, his “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
5. Because we have
experienced disappointment, pain, and loss, we have the greatest opportunity of
our life to bear witness to the reality of our faith, and the reality of Jesus
in our life, and our expectation of Glory.
6. When we come closer to our
heavenly homeland, our Christian witness becomes more credible, more powerful. Have
you ever had the pleasure of hearing someone at the end of her life tell of her
confidence in God—of her love for Jesus—of the peace God has given her as she prepares
for her exit? I have.
Let’s pray that we’ll be like
the palm tree and the cedar tree…that we will be always fresh and green…that we
will still bear fruit in old age…that we can show that the Lord is upright, he
is our rock of safety and there is no unrighteousness in him.
I read this little story in Guideposts. It is written by a man named
Charles Axe. Here it is in his words:
“I understood the people’s
reactions to me—the glancing looks, keeping their distance in silence. Like
others in the waiting room, I was there to see the cardiologist because I had
recently experienced a heart attack. But my orange prison jump suit, shackles,
handcuffs, and two armed guards, didn’t exactly help me to fit in.
“Then an elderly woman walked
in, smiled, and said, ‘God bless you. I hope you’re doing well.’
“I responded, ‘I’m fine.’
Suddenly, my anxious feelings were replaced with calm. ‘Thank you,’ I said.
“Afterwards, in the van
heading back to the prison, I thought about how that one person looked beyond
the outwards signs of what most consider a second-class citizen and saw a
person—a person who, through surely one of God’s own people, was in many ways
estranged from the human family. Maybe it was simply that she saw an opportunity
to do good.”
Sometimes a small act of
thoughtful compassion can make a significant difference in someone’s life. It
did in the life of Charles Axe. It gave him hope when his life was at its lowest
ebb.
Or the act of compassion
could be costly, such as writing a $1000 check for someone in need—or forgiving
and reconciling with someone who has grievously wronged you.
We are old, but we are not
useless. We can still bear fruit in old age.
In this way, we show that the
Lord is upright—he is our rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.
