Roots & Fruits (Vision Sunday 2024)

Today is Vision Sunday — the week we release our annual report, look back at what God did and where we fell short, and then look ahead at who God is calling us to be and what course corrections we need.

I heard someone say a while back that the only people who genuinely enjoy Vision Sunday are pastors. I am in the Exchange Club, and once a month we have a business meeting — always our lowest attendance. I suspect that is how Vision Sunday can feel.

So let me admit it: this one is for me. What you may not realize is how frighteningly easy it is, leading a church, to disappear into day-to-day operations. There is always email, meetings to attend, meetings to prepare for, another Bible study to write, a sermon to build. You get so caught up in the doing that you forget the why. Without a day like this I will not be the pastor you need me to be.

But I know it is for you too — because who we are as a church and where we are going affects you. Wherever you are spiritually, whether you are still investigating this whole Christianity thing, brand new to it, or decades in, we want to help you keep growing.

And here is what you will catch today: because the church is people, this vision is really about you. We cannot be what we hope to be unless you are part of it. This is not a pie-in-the-sky corporate dream. This affects your Monday.

Besides, I think your greatest joys and deepest memories are shared ones. You probably have good memories from times alone, but the best moments were shared — where you were part of something bigger than yourself. Hearing the vision is an invitation into that, so that when God does something, it is not one pastor celebrating. It is us.

Checking the Instrument Panel

Nearly every Vision Sunday we return to Ezekiel 47. The first twelve verses are our key passage — where we get our name, where our gather, grow, give, go pathway comes from, why we talk about being a Jesus-centered church.

Coming back each year is like a pilot glancing at the instrument panel. What is the wind speed? Are we at the right altitude? Do we have fuel? Any corrections needed to arrive safely?

I will summarize the first eleven verses quickly this year, because we are spending our time in verse 12. If the summary leaves you wanting more, previous Vision Sunday messages are on our website.

In chapter 47 the prophet Ezekiel is nearing the end of a guided tour of a temple — some scholars think he was physically taken there, others that it happened in a vision. The tour began back in chapter 40. Honest advice: chapters 40 through 47 are dry reading. If you ever suffer insomnia, start at chapter 40 and you will be unconscious by 43.

Ezekiel is taken to a high mountain with a temple on it and meets a man whose appearance is like bronze — some think that means a good tan, most think an angel — holding a linen cord and a measuring reed. And for seven chapters they measure things. Heights. Depths. On and on, with Ezekiel writing it all down. By chapter 47 you assume they have covered every square inch and the tour must be over.

And then, rather than looking for the exit or the gift shop, Ezekiel notices water. Not spilled water, not water dripping through the ceiling — flowing water. A stream coming out from the temple, running past the altar, out the east side, down the hillside, and crashing into the Dead Sea. And that sea, so saturated with salt and minerals that nothing can live in it, is suddenly teeming with fish.

The angel measures outward from the temple and has Ezekiel wade through four times, each time deeper, until the fourth time he cannot touch the bottom.

I believe that river points to Jesus. It comes from the temple — the place of worship and God’s presence — as Jesus came from heaven. It runs past the altar, the place of sacrifice, as Jesus went to the cross. It exits by the east side, and in chapter 44 God declares the east gate off limits to everyone because He used it — yet the river flows out that way, because Jesus is God. And it pours into the Dead Sea and brings life, just as Jesus crashes into our lives and moves us from spiritual death into spiritual life.

The four depths are our pathway. We don’t only want you to step into the river and find life — we want you going deeper, giving more of your life to Him, until the current has you in over your head. And when you cannot touch bottom, the river is in control. That is what we want for you: a life so surrendered that He can take you anywhere — your job, your neighborhood, your home, another city — to use you as a blessing.

And Then There Are the Trees

And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing. — Ezekiel 47:12 (ESV)

Two Bags

Years ago the sportswriter Rick Reilly — National Sportswriter of the Year eleven times, best known for the back page of Sports Illustrated — wrote a column in September 1999 that had nothing to do with sports and went viral. And if you are doing the math: there was no Facebook, no Instagram, no Twitter, not even MySpace. Back then things went viral by email. That is what our inboxes were for — people forwarding genuinely funny things, rather than church newsletters and store coupons.

I stumbled across it again this week and had forgotten how funny it is.

The Navy had invited Reilly to fly in the back seat of an F-14 Tomcat, and his advice to anyone offered the same opportunity is roughly: move to Guam, change your name, fake your death — whatever it takes. Do not go.

He describes a pilot who looked like everything you imagine a fighter pilot to be, a briefing about an ejection seat that would knock him unconscious on the way out, and a flight he expected to last twenty minutes that lasted eighty. Barrel rolls. Loops. Dives. Ninety-degree turns at hundreds of miles an hour, pulling enough g-force that his body weight multiplied several times over and crushed him into the seat. Sea became sky and sky became sea. He passed out twice. He went through not one airsickness bag but two — which is how the squadron settled on his call sign.

Two Bags.

It was just as funny in 2024 as it was in 1999. But this time something else struck me — because as your pastor I know some of your stories.

For some of you, 2023 was not a roller coaster. It was an F-14. You have been barrel-rolled and tossed and turned. You have emotionally and spiritually thrown up everything you had. You are hurting, lost, confused, and you genuinely cannot tell the sky from the sea.

What do you do when life throws you around carelessly — when God Himself seems like a heartless pilot who never asked whether you wanted this?

I think verse 12 tells us.

Be Tree People

Just as the river points to Jesus, I believe these trees point to Jesus followers. There are two phrases here that show what it means to follow Him.

In The Lord of the Rings there are tree people — the Ents. Ezekiel 47 is telling us that if we are going to follow Jesus, we need to be tree people.

1. “Because the Water for Them Flows from the Sanctuary”

The verse says these trees’ leaves do not wither and their fruit does not fail — in fact they bear fruit every month. Stop and consider how odd that is. Here in Iowa, leaves wither. They turn beautiful colors every autumn and then they fall and die. And our trees fruit once a year, in spring or late summer, not monthly.

How do these trees stay so vibrant? Because the water from the sanctuary flows to them.

A tree beside a river survives drought. A tree alone in a field is vulnerable — but put it next to flowing water and even with no rain it will do fine. These trees endure whatever comes because they are continually nourished by the river.

If the river is Jesus, then being tree people means getting our roots into Christ. That is exactly what Paul tells the church at Colossae — be rooted and built up in Him. Get your roots into Jesus, into the gospel, and let Him be the anchor so your faith is firmly established. So that when your life starts getting thrown around, you have something to hold.

For some of you it has been health — physical or mental. For some a difficult relationship. For some your career. Your children. An addiction. So many of us are fighting something, being tossed around, and the instruction is to anchor our roots in Christ. Because when you hold on to Him: even if your health fails, He does not. Even if that relationship ends, your relationship with Him does not. Even if the addiction seems to have a grip on you, He grips tighter.

I find I do well with God when life is going well — and the moment difficulty arrives I get irritated with Him. I have been obedient. You called me to leave everything and plant a church. Why are you letting this happen? And instead of running to Him I run to Netflix, or my phone, or ice cream. We all look for the escape hatch when the drought comes.

The harder life gets, the harder we need to fight to get our roots into Him — so that whatever the F-14 of life does to us, we are secure.

2. “Their Fruit Will Be for Food, and Their Leaves for Healing”

What does the river do for the trees? It nourishes them. It gives them life. It lets them survive and thrive. I would go further: it lets them rest. They do not have to worry about where nourishment will come from — the river is right there.

Now flip to the trees. What is fruit for? Food. Nourishment. And the leaves? The verse says healing.

Imagine walking through a dry country and spotting a grove around a pond. You head straight for it and sit down in the shade, where it is cooler and quieter and you can hear the leaves moving. For a moment you are refreshed. Leaves are for healing.

Notice that the trees are performing very nearly the same function as the river. The river nourishes them; they produce fruit to nourish others. And trees do not eat their own fruit — they feed from the ground and the river. Their fruit is for someone else. Same with the leaves: the river lets the trees rest through a drought, and the leaves let people rest and realize they are going to be all right.

God is calling us to love as Jesus loved and live as Jesus lived. We do not replace the river — Christ is the one and only river. But we are called to perform a strikingly similar function. The fruit God grows in us is meant to bless others. The leaves He grows through us are meant to comfort others.

Which means we cannot be a Sunday-centric church that gathers, hears a sermon, sings, calls it good, and disperses. It means some of us have to enmesh our lives with each other — because your fruit will help me, and your leaves will bring me healing, and mine will do the same for you. The more our lives intertwine, the healthier we all are.

So: Two Things

Last year our theme for the 21 days was gospel growth — praying that God would grow the gospel in us personally, in us corporately, and then outward. That was a deliberately outward focus, because too many churches turn so inward they ignore a hurting world.

But we can only do that if we are healthy — and right now some of us are not. That is not your fault. Things have simply come at you. You were thrown into the Tomcat, and right now sea is sky and sky is sea.

First: if you are the one being thrown around, let some people in. Open the cockpit and let someone sit down and fly with you. You were not designed to fly this alone.

You may want to push back, because you are Iowans and you are strong. And those of you who know your Bible will point out that Galatians 6:5 says to bear your own burden. Exactly right — but three verses earlier it says to bear one another’s burdens. In other words: if you can carry your own groceries, carry your own groceries. Don’t be a king or queen demanding servants. But if you cannot carry them — or should not be carrying them alone — you have to open up and let someone carry them with you.

This does not mean opening up to everybody. You don’t stand up on a Sunday and announce every foolish thing you did last weekend. It means the one person, or the two people, who you know love you and are for you and with whom you are safe. You tell them what you are actually facing, and you let them carry the groceries with you.

Second: if you see someone else in a Tomcat, go to them. Let God use your fruit and your leaves.

You will not be able to do this for everyone. I want to do it for everyone, and I am bumping hard against the limits of that. So hear me clearly: if you go to your growth group leader, or an elder, or Jake, or simply to each other — I am not offended. I am not sitting here wishing I had been the one. I want you healthy and following Jesus. If I get to be part of that, I am honoured. If God accomplishes it through someone else, I am glad they got to share their fruit and leaves with you.

It might just be listening — that may be all they need. It might be connecting them to someone. It might be being the hands and feet of Jesus: cleaning their house, making a meal, driving them to an appointment. Small things like that may be exactly the fruit that nourishes them, or the leaves they need to sit under and find some rest.

I will never share your story with others. But let me say plainly: we are a small church, and we have hurting people. If you are hurting right now, you are not alone — and I don’t mean that in the sense that the strong among us will come and rescue you. I mean that what you are going through, someone else in this room is very possibly going through too.

Sometimes it is precisely through our own hurts that we learn what being rooted in Christ does — and then God uses us for someone else. Helping another person does not eliminate your own problems. It is us together saying: let’s go after Jesus together.

That is the church God is calling us to be. Doors open, so the hurting can come and sit among our leaves. And a people who grow fruit and leaves for one another — healthy, full of joy, roots down in Christ.