WHAT WE WILL BELIEVE

A tree is a remarkable creation of God. So are you. Hear how God provides for the life and renewal of His creation today. I'm the Lutheran Hour. I'm Mark Eischer. Today, the church observes all saints' day. The Lutheran Hour is supported through the prayers and gifts of faithful saints like you. For more on that, here's Lutheran Hour speaker Dr. Michael Ziegler with a special invitation. It's the final week of the Lutheran Hour's Fall Giving Campaign. If you've never supported the broadcast before, this is a good time to start. Your gift of any amount will help share the gospel with listeners nationwide and will thank you with a copy of my new book, titled Begin Again. It's a journey through Genesis with the God who gives us new beginnings. You can give securely online at LutheranHour.org or call us Monday through Friday at 800-876-9880. The website again is LutheranHour.org and our number is 800-876-9880. If you've already responded, thank you. God bless you and we'll see you soon. ♪ Now, here is today's message. Consider the following design challenge. The task is to invent a machine, a simple machine, roughly the size of an Apple Watch. The first requirement is that this machine must be able to maintain the integrity of its software while it remains powered off for 2,000 years after its manufacture date. After 2,000 years, this machine must be able to detect the signal telling it to wake up, to turn itself on. Once powered up, this one-inch-wide machine must activate the raw materials and energy necessary to expand to 100,000 times its original size. And it must not travel to do this, it must remain stationary.

Furthermore, it must be capable of communicating with similar machines, regardless of their manufacture date. Oh, also, the machine has to be able to make food and air to support human life. Does it sound impossible? It is not. The machine exists. And after 2,000 years of dormancy, it is functioning as designed and presently supporting human life. The machine is a tree. Author Matthew Sleeth in his book, "Reforesting Faith", presented this design challenge to describe the life cycle of some palm trees that are currently growing in the Middle East, in Southern Israel. The trees are date palms, palm trees that produce dates, the edible fruit. The trees were sprouted from some 2,000-year-old seeds. Birthed in an archeological dig, the seeds are pits, from dates, that some ancient person had eaten and spit out and stored in a jar shortly before an invading army came and destroyed their city. And that's where archeologists found these pits, 2,000 years later, buried in the rubble of a ruined city. One seed was planted in 2005. The tree that grew from it turned out to be a male tree, so they named it Methuselah. Now Methuselah needed a partner to pollinate, and they had sprouted another 2,000-year-old seed found in the same rubble pile, which turned out to be female. They named that one Hannah. As of 2021, Hannah, after being dormant for two millennia, was mature and flourishing. And in that year's harvest, the tree produced around 700 dates. They were slightly sweet, with notes of honey. So you gotta ask, who could design such an incredible machine?

The fact of it, the fact that such inventions exist, and are all around us, should fill us with wonder and awe, maybe even worship. Now some people direct their reverence to the earth, or to the universe itself. Others hypothesize the existence of some unbelievably intelligent, alien race that must have seeded our planet with such wonders. For me, as a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, I bow to the God who created it, all of it. The trees, the earth from which they sprout, and the heavens towards which they grow. But why? and not of someone or something else? It is because of God's seed planted in me, not the seed of a date palm tree marvelous in its own right, but a seed from the same designer, the seed of God's word. I am a Jesus follower because of the word, the communication, the account of Jesus, the resurrected Son of God, the word passed down and sown throughout the world for the last 2,000 years, drawn from the track record of God at work in the world that stretches back even further, all recorded in the best-selling book of all time, The Bible. I am a Christian because of the seed of God's word, sown into my ears, germinated in my heart, rooted in my desires and thoughts and growing slowly in the practices and routines of the Christian community into which I've been planted. I can't take credit for it.

All glory goes to the originator of this seed, this word from God, the word become human. Jesus, in the Bible, people are often likened to trees. Psalm 92 says that the righteous, that is those who are in a right relationship with God, that they flourish like palm trees and grow like a cedar. They are planted in the house of the Lord. They flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age. They are ever full of sap and green to declare, the Lord is upright. People are like trees because they are seeded by God. And with God's life flowing through their roots and trunks, they flourish and bear fruit. Apart from God, they wither and die. People are like trees, but also not. The seeds that make trees are physical, material. And when the conditions are right, growth happens automatically, reactively. But for people who are more than just material, for people, the seed that makes us who we were meant to be is relational. The seed is the word of God. An exchange of words, a conversation. In our growth, it's not reactive but communicative. In the conditions, we need to thrive our right relationships. Trust and love in communication with God, hearing God's word, talking to him in prayer, and also trust and love in communication

and community with other people. God made people to be like trees. But also, God made people to become his children. Part of God's family, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers in Christ. Trees, wither and die when conditions are wrong. So also for humans. But it's different for humans because our death isn't primarily physical. It is physical, but first and foremost, it is a death of relationships. And this relational death can happen even while we're still alive physically. It all plays out in the Bible's first book, the book of Genesis, the account of the first humans, Adam and Eve, and their first two children, Cain and Abel. What happened was this, the devil, a powerful spiritual being created by God yet in rebellion against God, the devil sowed seeds of doubt and distrust in their hearts. The humans receive these words, false words, lies, about God lies about themselves, and they let those lies take root and grow. It led to physical death eventually, but first and foremost, it killed their relationships. They had been created to become God's children, designed for love, receiving life from God and giving their lives in support of others like trees, but now they're hiding in the trees, hiding from God, ashamed, and then jealous

and resentful of each other. And the result was the first murder, Cain, murdered his brother. These are the deadly relational conditions in which we've all been rooted. The Bible is the account of how Jesus, God's eternal son was born into this world to take away these conditions. Jesus came to sow seeds of trust and love The world, however, didn't want to hear it. And as Cain killed his brother, Jesus was murdered, crucified on a cross, on a tree. Jesus, however, saw things differently. He compared his life to a seed, not of a palm tree, but of a grain of wheat. He said that no one was taking his life away from him. He was laying it down freely, in love, to be planted in the ground so that he could rise from the dead and produce many seeds, so that everyone who hears and receives his word would grow to become oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah described it. Now, all this will be complete when Jesus returns, when he reappears at the end of time to raise the dead and renew the whole creation, and the trees of the field will clap their hands. See Isaiah 55 verse 12. This is the promise that gives us Christians hope. It is the seed that we are sowing for you in this word we broadcast every week. It is the seed that is landed in me and in my community. If you're a part of a Christian community, today your church may be celebrating all Saints day when we remember inspiring Christians, examples from the past. This is a good thing to do. At the same time, we remember that none of us, none of us Christians, are the mature oaks of righteousness or flourishing date palms that we were designed to be, not yet. Even as saints, we're more like saplings or dormant pits buried in ruins. What we will be has not yet appeared, but what we are even now is God's children, his adopted kids, and we're growing up like tender shoots before him.

We're practicing and failing, saying sorry, being forgiven, trying again. We are not yet what we will be. And it has been like this for every generation of Christians. This is partly how we got the Bible. The carriers of God's word had to keep sowing it again and again, because growth for humans doesn't happen merely chemically and physically but relationally. We are not trees, but children. And to grow children need words, many words, words of care and concern, words of welcome and warning, words of protection and pardon. A prime example of this in the Bible is the first letter of John. John was one of the first followers of Jesus. He was an apostle. Someone sent out by Jesus to broadcast the word. John's three letters, especially the first one, which is longest, communicates these loving words from God that we need to hear again and again as we grow. John says he is writing to uproot that old, distrustful, sinful rebellion against God. He says, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin," which assumes that we still have a sin problem. In fact, earlier, he said that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. But if we confess our sins, God is faithful to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. John wants us to stop sinning, but he also knows that what we are now is not yet what we will be. So he says, if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. That is, the way God is pleased to forgive our sins, and not only ours, but to forgive the sins of the whole world. So listen. Listen how this veteran follower of Jesus continues and speaks the word for us in this third chapter of his letter. You all see what kind of love God the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is because it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. We know that as he is. Everyone who has hope in him in this way purifies himself, as he is pure. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. And you know that Jesus appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. Everyone who lives in him, everyone who abides in him, does not continue in sin. And anyone who continues in sin has neither seen him nor known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who practices righteousness, a right relationship with God, is righteous, as he is righteous. The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning and the reason

the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. Everyone born of God does not make a practice of sin, because God's seed abides in him. And he cannot continue in sin because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who the children of God are and who are the children of the devil. The one who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother or sister. This is the message you heard from the beginning that we ought to love one another, that we ought not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers were righteous. Do not be surprised brothers and sisters if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death and into life because we love the brothers. Anyone who does not love abides in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. This is how we know what love is. That Jesus laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. Now if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, how can the love of God abide in him? Dear children, let us love not with mere words or talk but in action and in truth. This is how we know that we are of the truth and reassure our hearts before God that if our heart condemns us, when our heart condemns us, that God is greater than our heart and he knows everything. Love it. If our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God and whatever we ask from him we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment that we trust in the name of his son Jesus Christ and we love one another just as he commanded us. Whoever keeps God's commands abides in God and God in him and by this we know God abides in us by the Spirit whom he has given us. First John chapter 3 I remember my first time really struggling with this chapter from Scripture. It was before I was married in a Bible study group with other single young adults. We read 1 John 3 and talked about it and it raised all these questions. Am I really a child of God, even when I don't act like it? How much sin is too much? When does a stumble or a mistake become a practice or a habit? What happens when I close my heart against my brother or sister in need? How quickly does apathy or indifference become hatred, which is the same as murder? How long does it take before I close myself off to the love of God completely? These are serious questions for any Christian to consider and some days we can feel our hearts condemning us. John has wise counsel. He says whenever our heart condemns us God is greater than our heart. In other words, go back to the promise God is greater

unrighteousness because God is greater than our hearts. He invented trees, didn't he? And trees do what they do, not because they try harder, but because of the seed that gave them life, because of the God who gives them life. You are greater to God than a tree. God died on a tree so that you could become his daughter, his son. Whoever ate that date in the desert 2000 years ago and put the pit in a clay pot as they waited for their civilization to be destroyed, never would have imagined that that pit would now be a seed that's bearing fruit today. Those and sisters in Christ, what we will be is beyond imagining. We are who we are and we will be what we become because God's seed abides in us. God's word in our lives is what makes the difference. If you've ever been without God's word, you know the difference. There was a time in my life when I shut out God's word. I didn't want to hear it. I know what it's like to practice sin, to really wallow in it. I know what it is to hate, to live in relational death, and I never want to go back. I can see the difference God's word is made in my life. And if you look, you can see it in yours already, even though what we will be has not yet appeared. Not until Jesus returns to raise the dead and renew the creation and all the trees of the field clap their hands. Until then, we're still saplings, tender shoots, or maybe just dormant date pits. That seed, God's children, in the name of Jesus, amen. You're listening to the Lutheran Hour. Go to lutheranhour.org for free online resources in both English and Spanish, as well as volunteer opportunities to get involved in our worldwide ministries. That's lutheranhour.org. Next, music for All Saints Day from the Concordia Seminary Chorus. Behold the hosts, behold the hosts, arrayed in white. Light those and smoke, let mountains bright.

This land with bones, this land with bones, I'm singing their songs, and singing their songs before the throne of the light. They now serve God, they now serve God both day and night. Oh, say, sing with that happy throne, lift up one voice. Lift up one voice, let them rejoice, let them rejoice. Sing, O Redeemer's song. No, say, God, earth, let thy true star. (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language)

(choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language)

(choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language) (choir singing in foreign language)