Please take your Bible and turn with me to Psalm 92. Psalm 92, a psalm or song of the Sabbath day. I would direct your attention to verse 12. Psalm 92, verse 12. The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon." The believer is likened unto a tree. Not only here, of course, we know that the whole book of Psalms opens in Psalm 1 with a reference to the believer being likened unto a tree that's planted by streams of water. and the man who meditates upon the law of God who is fruitful and whose leaf does not fade and so on. So too here the believer or the righteous shall flourish like a palm tree and he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. But it is only possible for the believer to be likened unto a tree because in the first instance our Lord Jesus Christ is likened unto a tree. I mean, he is the stock, after all, into whom his people are graft as branches. And He is the One who, in the first instance, is being spoken of and described here in this passage. He, Christ, is the Righteous. He is the Righteous One, who indeed flourished like a palm tree, grew like a cedar of Lebanon. And it is because that in Him all the fullness is found, that we through Him find grace for grace. so that we ourselves are able to flourish and to grow through the grace that comes from Him. You'll notice the surrounding context here, how we see that the believer is planted, not planted by themself, but planted by the Lord, by God Himself. And you notice the soil in verse 13, into which they're planted. They're planted into the house of the Lord, that is, the church. and are caused, therefore, to grow and to flourish, despite all outward opposition. Unlike the wicked, they flourish with fruitfulness. They flourish, verse 13 says, in the courts of God, within and among the ordinances through which Christ walks. before whom we we worship they're described in verse 14 as fat and flourishing a picture of health and vigor and vitality and and so on even into old age they are made fruitful and unlike trees in our ordinary experience that grow old and begin to decay and cease to bear fruit. Here, those that are in union with the Lord Jesus Christ, even to the very end, even into their very old age, are enabled to bear fruit and to flourish before him. So it speaks of the righteous, Christ himself, and in Christ and through Christ, his believing people. This lays down marks of discrimination. It's a reference in verse 12 to the righteous. not to the unrighteous who were spoken of earlier in the psalm, the wicked. No, it's the righteous distinguished from the unrighteous, those who have been united to Christ by faith through the Holy Spirit, who have a justifying righteousness, those who in and of themselves are ungodly, but in the Lord and from the Lord, they have imputed a righteousness, not their own, but his own, an alien righteousness, which clothes them. so that they are declared righteous before the Lord himself, but it's also a sanctifying righteousness, so that by the Spirit, the believer is in union with Christ, made righteous as well, renovated, transformed, and conformed to the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. this is who is being spoken of in verse 12. So we'll note two things primarily from this brief verse. First of all, the righteous flourishing. First of all, flourishing. This is describing the believer and their growth in grace. He shall flourish like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar of Lebanon. The palm tree has its own features and the cedar has its features. Very different in many ways. The palm tree is able to withstand enormous storms because of the way in which the Even the cellular structure of its trunk is able to bend with the wind and so on, and is preserved. The cedar, by contrast, grows much larger, both far fatter as well as far taller, with roots that are deeply rooted into the ground, also demonstrating a form of strength. So here you have the believer being described in terms of their growth in grace, the increase in the several parts of the new man. So the believer is flourishing and growing in terms of spiritual knowledge and understanding. Just like children, who when they're growing, they're always learning. They're like sponges. In school, outside of school, all of life is a gigantic laboratory in which they're gleaning all sorts of information. So for the believer, in all stages of their Christian experience, there's an increase in their spiritual knowledge. They know that to be spiritually minded is life and peace and knowledge of God himself, growing in a knowledge of God himself and of his will and word. and not only so, but also conformed to that will, to God's will, so that like a weaned child of which we sang on the Lord's day, they are weaned more and more from the creaturely comforts of this world and brought into subjection to the Lord's word and made alive to the world to come, pliable and submissive to His ways. They're growing in terms of tenderness of conscience, so that they live, as it were, with the words echoing in their mind, Thou God seest me. Walking in the fear of God. They're growing in grace in terms of the purifying of their affections. Setting their mind and hearts on things above where Christ is. and transferring their affections from the things of this world to the things that last forever. This increase of grace among the believing, among the righteous, all of which flows from the fullness of Jesus Christ, grace after grace after grace, heaped upon grace, Sin has the opposite effect, doesn't it? Sin brings about increase. It brings about the increase of corruption, of rottenness. So if you think of a tree that is dying, it would be that which speeds up its decay, speeds up its rot. That's the nature of sin. But grace is what destroys that corruption, consumes that corruption. And the Lord is the one who gives. God gives grace. He gives grace to the humble, to the dependent, to those who are believing, to those who are looking and waiting and walking with Him. All that He gives is of grace. in each component of His saving work within the soul. And we see this flourishing, this growth, coming through means that the Lord has appointed. He gives us the Word, which is to be read. But especially in the preaching of the Word, that we're caused to grow to grow up in this grace. You think of when Paul's speaking to those Ephesian elders in Acts 20, he tells them in verse 32, and now brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. Think back to Psalm 1. It's meditating on the Word of God that brings forth this fruit in its season with leaves that never wither. It's being rooted and grounded in the Word of Jesus Christ. We have, of course, the sacraments, both baptism in its its influence initiating us into the visible church, but then having sustained impact upon us in the improvement of that baptism as it's sanctified to us by the Spirit. You think of the supper, and the whole substance of the supper is about spiritual nourishment. about the Lord nourishing his people through their feeding by faith on Jesus Christ. We have prayer, which is a means. Prayer is asking and thereby receiving. And the Lord tells us, you wonder why you receive as little as you do. It's because you ask as little as you do. You have not because you ask not. This is a means that the Lord uses. We enter into communion with the triune God in prayer and behold Him in His glory, and we offer up the desires of our hearts to receive them according to His will. You think of providence itself, the sovereign orchestration of all that God is doing in the most detailed nano-minutia, as well as in the most cosmic meta-level, the Lord's providential outworking of his own will and our interface, every point at which we touch all of that. The Lord says, you see it all? No. You see part of it? All that there is, both what you see and don't see, I'm causing all of it to work together for the good of those who love me, who are called according to my purpose. In winter, He's at work. The winter seasons of the Christian life, when all appears to be dead, and barren, and cold, and leafless, and whatever, fruitless. The Lord's at work underground among His people. He's at work in spring, and summer, and fall, in all of His dealings with us. And in all of this, in the ordinances that we've mentioned, we have the operations of the Holy Spirit. God giveth increase by and through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. So you know 2 Corinthians 3 where he's saying you're beholding the glory of Jesus Christ through the mirror of the Bible. And the Spirit is transforming you from one degree of glory to another into His own likeness. It's the Spirit who comes and shed abroad, causes the love of God to be shed abroad in the hearts of His people. It's the Spirit who comes, having shown us the love of the Father, also comes to show us the glory of the Son. Enables us, takes the things of Christ and shows them to us. This is the Lord causing his people to flourish, causing his people to grow within his own courts. And it's through the gospel, it's through the preaching of Christ that all of this is brought forward. One thing that, in terms of your own reading, perhaps, or survey of history, you discover that in the seasons where moralistic preaching has predominated. So you think, for example, the 18th century. You know, periods like that. Where moralistic preaching prevails, immorality prevails. The more just raw morality that's preached as an end in itself, the more immorality spreads. And it's interesting to reflect on this, just thinking historically about how it is manifest. What's needed is the preaching of Christ. Do we believe in morality? Of course we do. High views of the law of God and of its penetrating application to the deepest crevices of every bit of our lives. But it is in preaching Christ, and preaching the glory of Christ, and setting forth the wonder of the glory of God, and all that He has revealed to us in His Word, that He brings forward the greatest works of transformation. I think it was Professor Murray who said, there is a sense, right, he would have affirmed the fact that the Word, sacraments, and prayer are all means of grace. But he said, considered from a different perspective, There's really only one means of grace. Beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And you see his point. In the Word, we're brought to behold Christ. In the sacrament, we're brought to behold Christ. And in prayer, we're brought to lift up our faces through the mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so here's the Lord, and he's coming, and he's saying, in Christ, who is the righteous one, The believing people are made to flourish and are made to grow. Just as we heard in Isaiah not too terribly long ago, he's the one who comes and pours out water upon the thirsty. He's the one who pours floods upon the dry ground. He's the one who comes, as you see in Hosea 14, as a dew. to descend upon his people in order to make them flourish and grow in his grace. But then secondly, flourishing with fruitfulness. Part of this flourishing, part of this growth includes Fruitfulness comes out, of course, in verse 14, they shall still bring forth fruit in old age. The cedar trees in ancient times were told from ancient historians like Pliny that they stretched something like 130 feet in the air, right? The old cedars and were vast in terms of their birth of their compass of their trunks and so on. The Lord says, this is my believing people who, in union with Jesus Christ, are receiving out of his fullness grace for grace. The believing people of God, of course, grow downward. You can think of these different dimensions. We do. We grow downward, just as a cedar sinks its roots, which are like the branches below the ground, what the branches above the ground are, reflected with the branches under the ground, if you will, it sinks its roots deep, deep into the soil. So the Lord's people, they're brought, they grow downward. We grow in humility, not feigned humility, not just humble vocabulary that we're taught. not just notions of humility, but genuine gospel humility, growing downward, growing in self-denial, which is essential for following the Lord Jesus Christ, to see ourselves as the chief of sinners, to see ourselves as the least of all saints, to see ourselves as nothing. This is growth. This is flourishing. to grow in humility, those who are fond of themselves. And well, all of us are fond of ourselves. So to say, those who are fond of themselves is to speak of everyone, all of us. Naturally, we're very fond of ourselves. What does the Lord do to his people when they begin to flirt with notions of self-flattery and praise and being puffed up? He leaves them to themselves. The Lord does many things, but one of the frequent things that he does is to leave them to themselves for a space in order to help us come to our senses and seeing ourselves. Without his intervention, without his grace, without his protection, without the provisions that are made moment by moment, we would shrivel up and die in a split second. The Lord discovers, causes us to discover the rank evil of our own hearts and to be brought down in humiliation before him. This is growth. It's growth downward. There's also growth upwards. That's easy to see. The believer is more and more to be growing in heavenly-mindedness, Christ-centeredness. That will bring with it a contempt for this world, which is sanctified. It'll bring with it a consciousness that our citizenship is in heaven above, our sense of orientation, our appetite for the things of heaven and the things that last forever. This is all growth. It's growth upwards. There's growth inwards as well, isn't there? So the believer is made stronger through that inward growth, through through the spiritual exercise of our souls, the things that aren't seen and indeed can't be seen, but the cultivation of love for the Lord Himself, the fear of God, the sight of God. All that comes with that. The mortification of sin. Keeping our hearts with all diligence. But then there's growth outward as well. And this is seen in what is visible, what is observable. Fruitfulness. You know, the good words that come out of the mouth of God's people. The good works which flow out of their lives. This is fruitfulness. The Lord makes even the stumblings and the falls of his people fruitful. I mentioned a moment ago about our pride, which swells up and the Lord repeatedly cuts down. The believer has falls, sometimes full out face plants, falls into sin, which are followed by spiritual recovery. One falls into a period of coldness through their own folly and spiritual waywardness. The Lord pursues His people, humbles them, breaks them, brings them under conviction of sin, brings them to repentance, recovers and restores and strengthens them from their backsliding. And what comes on the backside of that? What comes on the backside of it is greater vigilance, greater watchfulness, greater humility, greater zeal, an increase of gratitude and love for the Lord, and all sorts of other things, all of which is fruit, so that the Lord is bringing good, even out of the evil, to the praise of His own glory. How is all this possible? How is it possible that the righteous flourish and they grow in such manner? It's only possible because the Lord Jesus Christ himself has purchased that growth. Christ as Redeemer, Christ as the Savior of His people, has purchased everything. He has paid in full all that is necessary, all that is required, all that is provided. At every detail, at every point, it comes from Him. You say, well, the sinner needs to believe, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that they might be saved. And it's true. and the sinner who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ discovers that faith is itself the gift of God, purchased at the high cost of the blood of Jesus Christ himself. The believer is flourishing because Christ has purchased it. The believer is flourishing because Christ is interceding for it. Because even right now, He is interceding and praying for the growth of His people, just as He did in His high priestly prayer and said, Lord, sanctify them by the truth. Thy word is truth. So He continues to intercede. Sanctify them. Beautify them. Adorn them with holiness and fruitfulness. The Lord sends us all sorts of gifts. We heard earlier about the word. He sends ministers, as Ephesians 4 says. What? For the equipping of the saints, for the building up of the body, for their growth and strengthening. The believer flourishes because the Lord is foreordained, as Romans 8 tells us. We all know Romans 8 28, verse 29 that follows, speaks about how the believer is predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's son. The Lord is foreordained that his people be conformed to the likeness of his son. And so we flourish and grow. All of this sets, by way of contrast, sets the contrast with the wicked. In verse 7 it says, when the wicked spring as the grass, so there appears to be a flourishing here, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed forever. Very different, isn't it, from a palm, very different from a cedar. They're likened unto grass, grass that flourishes briefly and is destroyed eternally. This is cause for lamentation, isn't it? That the unrighteous, the unbelieving are in fact dry, barren, dead tree. A dead tree only increases to rot, it only continues to rot more and more until it disintegrates further and further and further. Biodegrades into dirt and so on. They don't flourish. When I was a child, and perhaps some of our children are the same, I would love to go into the woods, which we had plenty of, and hunt down dead trees. Especially the medium-sized ones. We would run through the woods, we would find them. The ones that are still standing, but are dead. You know, so much fun to then push and, you know, all our might, you know, push these things and they would, and then we would watch them, you know, hit the ground. That's the nature of the unrighteous. They're standing dead, rotting, easily pushed over. So the question comes to us, doesn't it, in verse 12? The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. The question comes, is this true? Do we discern these things under the light of the word of God, under the gaze of God? Do you desire to grow? Start there. Do you desire to flourish and grow? Is there a prizing of Christ above all else? Can you say, He really is chief among 10,000, the lover of my soul. He really is fairer than all the sons of men. He is what is most, most precious, most desirable, most needed. because the desire to grow coupled with prizing the Lord Jesus Christ, these things come together, and it is from that Christ that we receive the ability to be like a tree that flourishes and grows. Is that true? For those of you who are unconverted, the answer is no. It's not true. You have no desire to grow in grace, and you don't prize Christ above all else. And so you haven't been planted, as it were, by the Lord. So where does that leave me? it still leaves you pointed to this Savior. Christ came to die for the ungodly. For whom did he die? He came to die for the ungodly. He didn't come to die for the righteous, to save the righteous, but to call sinners to repentance. He didn't come in order to take those who are whole, and to heal them. He came to die for the ungodly. For those who are unconverted, and you're thinking to yourself, well, this isn't me. I'm not a tree. I'm not a palm tree. I'm not a cedar tree that's planted in Lebanon. I'm not fruitful. I'm lost. That may be true, but you have no cause for despair. There's no cause for despair. Insofar as Christ is set forth as the one who plants us, waters us, nourishes us, and makes us fruitful, Christ is set forth that we might flee to him, that we might see in him the righteous one, in his dying agony, in his perfect obedience to the law of God, and to recognize without Him, I'm without hope and without God in this world. But that in coming to Him, we receive the one who is all in all. You know, some of you maybe find yourself in a different place and you say, well, I'm not growing, I'm not flourishing. Therefore, I must be a hypocrite. I've professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But I'm not growing and I'm not flourishing. So perhaps I'm not righteous. And of course that is a possibility. We'll circle back to that in a moment. That is a possibility. But it is not necessarily the case. You take a tree, a substantial tree, in winter that's alive and well. There is life in winter seasons. But all the action is underground, right? Those roots are actually going deeper, further into the soil during winter. So the second part of summer, it's gathering while all the leaves are still on and everything is going on. It's gathering all that energy and then sticking it down into the roots to be at work over the winter, saving up all the energy that the Lord gives. It's possible that the Lord takes us through seasons that are winter-like, and the Lord is doing more underground than we realize, even in our searching us out and humbling us. There's also a difference between really growing and sensibly growing. You can be really growing and not be sensible that you're growing. I've used this illustration before, but you know, you look at a child and then you look at the next day, they haven't grown. But if you don't see them for a month or a year, you think, wow, they've grown a bunch. The same thing's with a tree. you can have a tree in your yard that you've planted and you go out and water it and look at it and trim it and so on it doesn't seem to be changing at all day to day week to week but you come back at intervals after a year it's sprouted up and come back after You know, three years. Or you sell your house and you think, you know, when we first moved here 15 years ago, do you remember the size of that tree? Look at it now. I forgot all about that. You weren't sensible of it growing. That can be true for the true believer, where they're really growing and not sensible of it. There can be times when we're growing downward and inward without as much outward. So the Lord is doing a lot of heart work with us, and we're seeing less visible fruit, but there's inward fruit that the Lord is bringing to pass. We also need to distinguish between grace and gifts. Because you may say, well, my gifts aren't growing, my gifts, spiritual gifts, exercise of gifts, and it could be prayer, it could be all sorts of things, right? There's not a giftedness that's developing there, but there is grace that's growing there. Grace can be growing without the gifts growing proportionately at times. And so that's a word to console and to help those to whom it's appropriate who may be struggling. You know, we hear all this stuff about flourishing and growing. Where does that leave me if I feel as if it's not the case? Am I, who am a professing Christian, a hypocrite? But there does need to be, obviously, evidence of growth. There needs to be evidence of growth. There needs to be conflict with spiritual loss, being engaged in the battle with temptation. and the desire to be delivered from evil and to walk in ways that are pleasing with the Lord. You know, power that's demonstrated in perhaps your predominant sin, the Lord at work and in such things. There's got to be motivation in terms of hatred for sin and love for the Savior. There's got to be a concern not just about quantity of fruitfulness, but the quality of fruitfulness. You know, you can give me a whole bushel of apples that are grainy and tasteless and full of worms. Well, there's a whole bushel full. Or you can give me just a handful of super hard, crisp, tightly grained apples with that perfect mixture of sweet and tart. We'll take the latter, won't we, over the bushel. So there needs to be concern about quality, not just quantity. And that does bring a word to those who are perhaps not so fearful and exercised as those who are concerned about hypocrisy in their own souls, but those who are rather not at all concerned and feel quite smug and happy with themselves. Because in that instance, a hypocrite can be content with gifts. and an absence of grace. You can be quite happy to have facility of speech and being able to say the right thing or pray or do other things, but there'd be very little or there'd be no grace at work. Gifts without grace. There could be those with a profession without the power being manifest. Those who are very interested in themselves without being occupied with the Savior, which brings pride, not humility. And so the Lord needs to search us out in those areas and many more. Whatever our case, there's an exhortation that flows out of this. The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. We are to give all diligence, as Peter says, adding to our faith virtue, virtue knowledge, and so on. We are to be in earnest about that spiritual fruitfulness. And that means we're to be in earnest with nearness to Christ, communion with Christ, dependence upon Christ, drawing upon the infinite resources that flow from God through Christ by the Spirit to water, nourish, strengthen our souls through all of the various means that he's appointed. And that includes, you know, one thing I haven't mentioned, which is keeping good company. Right? Spiritual engagement with those of like heart and mind is a tremendous stimulus to the believer. Engaged in spiritual conversation with our brethren. This is huge. The Lord sanctifies, blesses, uses this. along with the means of the Word, sacraments, and prayer, all of which, though, are to be tied to nearness to Christ. He is the one who can sing first and best. The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree. He is the fulfillment of all of this, and we desperately need Him. It is believing on Him and then being brought into union with Him by the Spirit. And when and where that is the case, the believer, the righteous, shall indeed flourish and grow. And it is a growth that can be and will be sustained. Even into old age, they shall still bring forth fruit in old age. They shall be fat and flourishing. So that you have, even in old age, when all of the Body is breaking down. And the natural sinful inclinations toward irritability are closer to the surface. And we're worn out and tired. That even in such conditions, the inward man being renewed day by day can be made to flourish with fruitfulness to the glory of Jesus Christ. to his praise. May the Lord help us as we reflect on these truths. Let's stand for prayer. Almighty God in heaven, we come with thanksgiving and praise for the Son of God, the eternal Son of the eternal Father, and for all of the fullness that is to be found in him. of which we receive grace for grace. O Lord, grant that we would be planted in the house of the Lord. Grant that we would be made, O Lord, fat and flourishing, still bearing fruit all our days. That we would grow, that we would flourish like the palm tree grow up, like the cedar of Lebanon. Grant that it would be to the glory of God that men and angels would see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven. Hear our cries, we ask for Jesus' sake. Amen.