The Thing About Seeds...

Matthew 25:14–18 (NIV)

“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them.

To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.

The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more.

So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more.

But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

Introduction

My wife and I have been married for 18 years now, and what I want to do is expound upon some of my wisdom to all of the men who are here today. Lean in and listen as this sage of marital wisdom gives you pearls of knowledge...

You hear this generalization of a nagging wife. It’s almost a bit of a birthright for a woman to one day transition from a young and spunky fountain of fun, to becoming a nagging wife. And over the last 18 years of marriage I’ve come to realize that a woman does not grow up with the desire to become a nagging wife. She doesn’t look at her husband at her wedding day and promise before him and God to one day repeatedly remind him to over the course of 6 months to hang up that picture frame. No, this isn’t something she aspires to, but rather it is the result of her husband somehow transforming his wife from “to have and to hold to”, “when are you going to do this?”

So I’ve discovered the hack to prevent this from happening, and it is going to save your marriage.

Are you ready husbands? Are you ready wives to witness this?

Do it the first time she asks.

It’s that simple.

And if she comes out of the kitchen and says, “Honey, when you get a moment...” You might as well get right up then and there becuase she doesn’t mean in a moment, she means, she is sick of watching you watching grown men play with a ball. Get up and get this chore done for the love of your life.

Transition

And as humorous and as helpful as I hope all of that was, there’s some of that in this story that I want to share with you as well. This is the well known story of the parable of the talents.

It be like that...

The first thing that we need to understand as we approach this passage of scripture is that Jesus is speaking about the Kingdom of Heaven. He is having a conversation about principles that apply to the Kingdom of Heaven that consequently are at conflict with the principles of the Kingdom of this World.

The principles of the Kingdom of Heaven are often in conflict with the principles of the Kingdom of this World.

Jesus teaches this parable, and he taught many other parables in this setting, and when he was finished teaching, the religious leaders began creating a plan to kill him. That’s how countercultural the teachings of Jesus were to his time.

In the same way, we need to approach this teaching with Kingdom eyes and ears to hear that what Jesus is saying. He is going to be misunderstood by people who don’t have ears to hear what the spirit is saying.

Are you tracking with me so far?

Many times God will open up the curtain of his Kingdom and invite us to take a glimpse into what he is doing, and how he works, and we have to decide are we going to go beyond the curtain and step into Kingdom living, or are we going to be satisfied looking in from the outside.

Are we going to just read and observe Kingdom living from the comfort of reading the scriptures, or are we going to step into the Kingdom of God and begin doing it God’s way?

Are we going to open up our social media and read about how God is moving in other churches, and read about revival breaking out in other areas, or are we going to also step into what God is doing with his church?

We have to decide, will we live according to Kingdom economy or will we live according to this world’s economy?

You Are What You Repeatedly Do

In this kingdom story, the master calls three of his servants and he gives each of them a sum of money based on one thing - their ability.

Everyone say their ability.

This is where this kind of teaching gets hard, because we are all the sons and daughters of God, made in his image and likeness, and yet we struggle to accept that God will trust us differently.

He loves us all equally.

Like Paul said, “Male or female, Jew or Gentile, slave or free,” we all get to sit at the table together.

But does he trust us all equally?

The story says no.

Our trustworthiness has nothing to do with our identity, but everything to do with our ability to obey.

Have we demonstrated to God that when he calls, we will answer?

Let me show you this in a Bible story that many of you are familiar with, and that is the story of Father Abraham.

When God chose Abraham to be the father of his people, Israel, he did so based off of one thing, he knew that Abraham would obey him.

To what degree?

God told Abraham to take his long awaited son Isaac, and offer him up as a sacrifice on top of a mountain.

Imagine that… Abraham is 100 years old when he finally has a son, and God says, “Great, now kill him as a sacrifice to me!”

Hold on a second God. I prayed for this boy. I believed against all odds for this boy. My 90 year old wife got pregnant with this boy. And now, you want me to sacrifice him?

[HUMOR]

You know I have another son, the one I had with my side piece. The one I wasn’t supposed to have with a woman that wasn’t supposed to be having my babies. We can kill two birds with one stones here God. You’ll get your sacrifice and I’ll stop paying child support. That’s what I call a win, win.

The Bible can be crazy y’all, I’m telling you...

What did Abraham do?

He obeyed God.

He got up early one morning and told Isaac, “lets go for a hike.” Isaac had no idea what his daddy was up to, and he went along with him to go on his hike. When he gets to the trail head Abraham tells Isaac, “when we get there, we’re going to offer a sacrifice to God.” Isaac is like, “Great!, But what are we going to sacrifice?”

Abraham doesn’t say a word, but continues to obey the Lord.

Now if you don’t know how the story ends, Abraham has his son Isaac strapped down to a rock and he is ready to drive a knife into his body and he hears the Lord say, “Ok you can stop, I was just playing!”

That’s not exactly what the Lord said, that’s my own paraphrase.

But the Lord stopped Abraham and hopefully, Isaac didn’t deal with the post traumatic stress of having almost been killed by his Daddy.

Abraham was trustworthy because he obeyed God. And I think this entire story is in the Bible, not for Abraham’s sake but for our sake.

When life doesn’t make sense, will you chose to obey God?

When God radically shifts you, will you chose to obey God?

When culture goes against the word of God, will you chose to obey God?

It’s not fun to talk about obedience, but do you want to know what it is?

It’s fruitful.

Someone say fruitful.

It’s not always fun, but it is always fruitful.

I want you to write down this hard truth; you are what you repeatedly do.

There’s grace in this statement here. I didn’t say that you are what you do. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we fall. Sometimes things happen. So there’s grace in that one act should not define you.

But likewise, if it’s a repeated act. If you’ve been warned, and yet you still engage in it. If you know it’s destructive, and yet you still engage in it. Then that is who you are.

You are what you repeatedly do.

Obedience is not a one time moment of good decision, but it is a lifestyle that honors God by doing everything that He has called us to do.

So that master brings his three servants to him and he distributes to the three of them differently because he knew their history.

In the Kingdom of God, once you’ve been saved God wipes your slate clean. You are no longer held back because of who you were before Christ. But as you enter into the Kingdom of God, favor will follow your obedience to the voice of God.

The Past is Prologue

There is a saying that applies to what happens next. That saying is, the past is prologue.

Have you ever heard of that?

It belongs in the Proverbs.

Look at the response of the servants who were given five and two bags.

Matthew 25:16 (NIV)

The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more.

Everyone say “at once”.

This is the most underrated insertion into the text.

The man who had repeatedly been faithful with obeying his master put his money to work immediately.

There was no delay, there was no conference call, there was no waiting, but he immediately got to work.

The best time to work the seed that you have been given is at once.

We have far too many people in the church saying,

“I will start being generous when I make more money...”

“I’ll start serving on the Dream Team when I have more time...”

“I’ll join a Connect Group when my schedule slows down...”

“I’ll get baptized when other people around me decide to do it...”

The list goes on and on of things that we put between our ability to do, and being obedient to the thing that God has called us to do. We want God to do more in our lives and he’s just waiting for you to show up.

Let me stop this train and explain to you Lighthouse that anyone who ever did anything great for God did so immediately.

Some of you need to make a decision right here, and right now that you will begin tithing to your church. Not when you make more money, but right now. Showing God right now that he can go ahead and bless you with more because you’ve been faithful with the little he has given you!

Some of you need to sign up for water baptism next Sunday, because you’ve already made the decision to follow Jesus. People ask me over the years, “when am I ready?”, and my reply is always the same. “Do you love Jesus?” and if the answer to that question is yes, then it’s time. There is a next step of obedience that is called water baptism and it represents that you are saying good bye to the world, and saying hello to Jesus. You aren’t going to wait any longer, but immediately you are going to step into a watery grave so that you can be resurrected with him after you have been buried in his likeness with water baptism.

There is a blessing on the other side of immediately.

Kingdom living is activated when we live our lives in constant response to what God is doing.

[Transition]

And if you look at what happened with the man who was given two talents, the Bible says, “Likewise, he went and did the same.”

So there is behavior that is directly connected to their trustworthiness.

Well, hold on a second Pastor Josh, the Bible doesn’t say behavior, it says their ability.

Behavior is the seed that becomes ability.

Many times we say, “Well if had the resources (ability), then I would give (behavior).”

But in the Kingdom of God, the resources don’t show up until you’ve proven to be a giving person.

And these two men, went to work doing what their master expected them to do at once.

Ask your neighbor, “What are you waiting on?”

Let me read to you some wisdom from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes 10:18 (NIV)

Through laziness, the rafters sag; because of idle hands, the house leaks.

This verse is saying, if you have a bad roof, you better get up there and fix it NOW. Because if you wait, and the rain comes, you’re going to flood your house.

There is an urgency to the Kingdom that we need to get inside of us. God is giving out seeds to his Kingdom, but his seeds go to the hands of his sowers.

Misplaced Expectations

In the Kingdom of God, you can’t pray your way to a harvest alone.

One of my favorite bible teachers, Bishop TD Jakes, said it this way, “If you are asking God for a chair, he’s going to give you a tree.”

In the Kingdom, God gives to us the raw materials in order to create what you are praying for.

Many of you hold the seeds to the fruit that you are praying for.

You are praying for God to give you fruit and he’s looking at you holding on to a hand full of seeds.

Prayer is not an excuse for your ability to do what God has enabled you to do.

Quoting my friend Manny Arango, “we don’t sow our seeds, and then we wonder why are fruitless.”

But do you want to know why so many people miss it?

Seeds don’t look like the fruit that they produce.

If I hold a watermelon seed in my hand, there is nothing about that seed that would anyone to believe that it will produce the watermelon. It’s not just the size of the seed, but the color of the seed as well. How could this thin, almost weightless black seed produce a big green on the outside and red on the inside fruit?

But that’s the thing about seeds...

We are so infatuated with the fruit of other people, but we have not idea the work it took to tend to the seeds.

So that said, I need for you to start asking God to reveal to you the seeds you need to be sowing. There’s a shift that needs to happen. Instead we need to be asking;

How much should I sow into my church now, that will continue to bless my finances?

What should I be doing now with my life that is going to show you I am trust worthy?

What is my next step of obedience right now, that is going to continue to bless my life?

What do I do with this seed in my hand now that is supposed to produce peace in my life?

Conclusion

If you are going to pray that type of prayer, Lighthouse, you need to be ready to act on that prayer. And not just hear from God, but to do what God is calling you to do immediately.