Seeds of Salvation

As we examine the background of this years focus passage - Luke 4:18-19 - we will gain insight into the need the world has for God, Jesus’ plan to address that need, and how the plan to implement the solution was planted in the ground of our lives.

Pray

Promise, Planting, Sprout, and Seed

What is our goal in life? If we listen to the culture, we would get very turned around!

“Live your own truth.”

“You are what you Identify as.”

“Your purpose is inside of you.”

These are others are the mantra of the world. But they will not set us on the path to the Kingdom of God! They will not bridge the gap between God and man. And worse, they will not allow us to share God’s love with the world!

As we turn back to scripture, again and again, day in and day out, we must come to this one conclusion: God is righteous and we are not. Like stones in the field return every spring, so the Lord will continue to open our eyes to the sinfulness inside us. He promises to remove those stones, to plant in us the words of life, to grow Himself inside us and to produce seed.

Sometimes that process feels stalled. Sometimes we are stuck in the mud. There are four directives scripture gives us that I’d like to call you attention to. When we make these habitual, we will be free to be used by God.

The first two we will see in:

Hosea 10:12–13 ESV

12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. 13 You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors,

Desire God

“It is the time to seek the Lord.” I don’t say this as a condemnation to you - I think as a whole we do a good job of this. I say this as an encouragement - that we continue and that we increase our desire for God, for His presence, for His effective authority in our lives.

How can we follow His lead when our eyes are not seeking Him?

How can we imitate Him if we do not study Him? Think of the child watching their parent. Even when we might think they are not paying attention, they are learning always. We don’t give perfect examples, but God does for us. This is the child-like faith that constantly pursues our God. Don’t have a teenager like faith that thinks: “Now the student has become the teacher.”

Desiring God is the first step to moving forward with Him.

Hunt Sin

The second step is also found in verse 12 from Hos. 10. We can not plant the things of God in a life full of sin.

To plant seed, the ground must be prepared. Sometimes there are stones in the ground that will hinder the roots of young plants from gaining the depth and nutrients the sapling needs.

These stones are blatant sins. Greed, anger, lust. Rebelling against God’s standard and design; reimagining what is right based on our own standard. These stones will reek havoc on the process of planting. They must be removed.

We pray that God reveals them to us.

Be active and proactive about removing them.

See them as a hindrance and an enemy to our lives and to God’s plan.

But sometimes it’s not the big rocks of rebelion. It’s the hard soil of neglect. When we haven’t been accustom to being used by God, our lives get very set in their ways. This is a sin of indifference to God’s plan. Hosea implores us to break up the fallow grounds as a necessary step in participating in God’s goodness.

What dies this look like? Maybe it means shaking up your quiet time. If your time in prayer and God’s word has become stale (or on vacation for the last several years!) try something new! Read through a narrative book. (I’d suggest Ruth.) Read through the whole book in one session if possible to get the entire narrative. Then go back slowly asking God to speak meaning and truth in each detail.

Maybe add a devotional to you quiet time. Or if a devotional is all you normally do, try reading the Bible without commentary. Let the Spirit of the Lord who dwells in you give you a soft heart for the Word of the Lord.

Whether it’s an overt act of rebellion that’s pitting you against God’s goodness and righteousness or a hard heart of neglect, treat that impediment as the enemy. Hunt. Kill. Destroy.

Plant the Promise

When we have expressed our desire for God’s working by removing that impediment, we must right away plant the promise in the prepared soil.

This is an ancient promise with immediate implications. Our focus passage this year is Luke 4:18-19 where Jesus is reading from the prophet Isaiah. The passage He is reading is Isaiah 61:1-4.

But this passage is the promised fulfillment of a previous prophecy.

Isaiah 42:5–9 ESV

5 Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it: 6 “I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. 8 I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. 9 Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

“you” here is singular. There is One who is called is the singular answer to the problem of sin and brokenness. Is. 42 is the prophetic call. Isaiah 61 is prophetic answer.

Isaiah 61:1–4 ESV

1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. 4 They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.

Isaiah tells of God’s call for a redeemer, and then tells of His future coming. When Jesus arrives at the temple in Nazareth, He declares the He is that fulfillment of this passage! But Jesus calls us to follow Him. He promises that He will live in us, transforming us from this world of darkness into the His glorious light. And so while Jesus IS the fulfilment of this promise, it’s working out is in the body of believers who are being transformed and who have removed the impediments of sin, preparing themselves to desire and be moved by God.

If Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah 61:1-4, and if you are in Christ, then YOU are called to fulfill this promise as well. The world around us depends of it!

So how do we do that?

Run the Race

Desire God

Hunt Sin

Plant the Promise

Run the Race

1 Corinthians 9:24 ESV

24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.

Hebrews 12:1 ESV

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

And at the end of his ministry, Paul writes to Timothy:

2 Timothy 4:7 ESV

7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

What a sorrow it is that so many have panted after God then desired to do nothing for Him. If we have gotten to this point, there are two errors that lead us astray.

The first is to see the goal is arriving at Jesus. To be clear, our goal is always to get closer to Jesus. But when our vision narrows to the point we can no longer see the world that He gave Himself up for, we are not indeed approaching the real Jesus.

James 2:14–17 ESV

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

The second danger is having gotten to Jesus, we leave Him behind and start planting a different crop. When the service to others transplants the offering of the gospel, our seed-bag begins to change contents. Maybe we start by liking too much the gratitude of others. That might lead to our over-valuing the physical need and undervaluing the spiritual need. Over time, we end up never getting to the gospel. Eventually, we embrace the world’s view of right and wrong because we have been so intoxicated by the admiration of those our kindness has benefited. So kindness that conceals vanity becomes an elixir of death.

Again, I offer this as a warning, not an observation.

But there is the exhortation: Run the Race. Run it for God’s glory. Run it with His purpose. Run it with His strength and in His Spirit. Only when we commit ourselves to Him can His purpose be made real in our ministries.

Isaiah 61:11 ESV

11 For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.

Jesus came to fulfil the promise.

The promise is the favor of the Lord.

The purpose is confirming the called and releasing the rebels.

The process is tangible and redemptive.

The means is found in the presence of the Lord.

The result is that ruined cities and lost generations are restored for their purpose.