Blessed is the man.

The encouraging word today is from the Book of Jeremiah. We’re going to look at a couple of verses here that will hopefully be encouraging to you this morning. Turn to Jeremiah chapter 17, and we will pick up here in verse number seven because I just love it when it says blessed is the man.

Any place I can look in the Bible where it tells me how to be blessed of the Lord. That’s someplace I want to pay attention to, whether it’s in the Old Testament or New Testament or anywhere… I guess there’s really not anywhere in between, but either one, Old Testament or New Testament to tell me how to be blessed, I want to pay attention to it. So it says here, verse seven:

It’s good to be able to put your hope in something that is steadfast. It’s good to be able to put your hope in something that is worthy of you, putting your hope in it. You know the government and the systems of the world are not worthy of your hope, because they’re going to let you down whenever it meets their purposes. But the Lord will never let you down.

Jeremiah 17:7–8

7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.

8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

It says it spreads out its roots by the river. The heat won’t bother it. It says the leaf shall be green and it won’t be careful. In the year of drought that just means full of care. Because if you have good roots, even in a time of drought, those roots still hold that moisture that you need. And I was looking at this and it just caused me to think about a garden.

Now, if you know me, you know that typically you do not want to take gardening advice from me. I tried to grow a garden a few times. We have a backyard again now, so maybe I’ll try again. Maybe. But I’m not really good at gardening and things and I don’t know why. I’m just not. I’m really good at killing things; Just not really good at growing things.

So anyway, having said that, I do know the principles behind gardening and I do know what you’re supposed to do. But like most things in my life, just because I know what I’m supposed to do doesn’t mean that’s what I actually do, right? And that’s probably really my main problem with gardening is I know what I’m supposed to do, but it’s a lot of work.

You know, you got to prepare the ground and you have to pull the weeds and you have to water it appropriately. And that’s what I want to key in on here this morning for, a few moments, is that watering aspect.

Because watering your garden seems like one of the easy parts, right? You just go out and you just water the garden. That’s what’s so hard about that. And but a lot of people, do it wrong. And I may even be one of those people who’s done it wrong. I don’t know, but a lot of times people will go out there and they will water their gardens incorrectly.

You may be thinking, I didn’t know there was a correct or an incorrect way to water your garden other than to do it or not. But there is. There’s a right way and there’s a wrong way. And if you do it the wrong way, then you’re going to you’re going to train those plants, and you’re going to train the roots of those plants to grow incorrectly.

So in other words, if you just go out in the evening and you just sprinkle a little water on each plant for a few minutes and things, and that’s all you ever do, what you’re doing is you’re teaching and training those roots that in order to get water where they get all their nutrition from, their sustenance from the minerals and everything else that they need, you’re training that plant what it needs to do in order to get all that stuff is they need to stay up close to the top. And then when they’re up close to the top, that’s when the sun can beat down and dry them out and cause all kinds of problems. If there is a drought or you’re like me and you just forget to go out and water them one night, then they don’t have any moisture because they’re just looking for moisture up here.

But if you’ll use something like a soaker hose. I never understood what the purpose of a soaker hose was. I’m like, aren’t you just wasting a bunch of water? The soaker hoses make a lot of sense with gardening because you put a soaker hose out there, and that just continuously puts some moisture into the ground, and that moisture goes deeper and deeper and deeper.

And then the roots know that they need to go down deep to get that water. Then those roots will grow deep. And then when there’s a drought or what have you, it’s not going to affect them because they’re not getting their minerals. They’re not getting all the things that they need to survive from the top. That’s why you want to use something like a soaker hose.

What does it have to do with anything? Well, God’s word is your soaker hose. This is your soaker hose. You need to soak yourself into God’s words.

Not just at a high level where you skim through here or there. Or you hear somebody talk about the Bible on the radio by accident while you’re flipping through the channels, or maybe you come to a church service, you know, even weekly, even multiple times a week. That’s great. And that’s awesome. And you ought to do that.

But that should not be the only time that you expose yourself to God’s Word. If you do, your roots are never going to grow deep. And you need those deep roots. Those deep roots will provide you the stability, nourishment, the refreshment. and the foundation that you need. And if you don’t spend time reading and studying the Word of God, you’re going to miss out on that.

So I want to encourage you today. Just simply don’t miss out.

Our hope at Irvington Bible Baptist Church is that this podcast provided some encouragement and has helped you to develop a closer relationship with the LORD Jesus Christ.