Faith,
I’ve been thinking about trees! Without trees, my house right now would crumble. It’s framed in wood. The desk my computer sits on is made from wood. The doors to the room where I now sit, the paper I wrote on earlier, the mandarin oranges and apple I had for lunch all exist because God gave us trees.
Genesis is filled with trees. We read in Genesis 2:9, “The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.” We even know God put the most important “Tree of Life” in the garden so humanity would have access to the life God alone provides. God even said, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden…”
“Wow! Any tree, God?!”
Any tree but one, folks! God said, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:17). Whoa! It takes a lot of misplaced faith to reject the provision of all those trees for a bit of “My-will-be-done” pride. It’d be easy to blame our first parents, but their pride is our pride, their story our story.
God’s solution? Another tree. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that by dying to sin we might live for righteousness—by his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24
I pray you will join us for this special Palm Sunday, friends, as we enter into Holy Week, led in worship by our kids, hearing the good news of Jesus in the story of trees.
In Christ alone,
Pastor Brad
***Message Notes and Group Discussion Guide are here.
And here are some helpful videos to prepare you for Sunday!
What is Palm Sunday–GotQuestions (4:37)