Sowing Good Seeds at Christmas

Opening Scripture

Hosea 10:12 (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.

Introduction

The message that God, the Holy Spirit, has given to me to share with us this morning is one of revealing the True meaning of the Christmas Season and the exposing of the deceptive, and for the most part, accepted, counterfeit message from the world, the flesh, and the kingdom of darkness, which has permeated, and yes, even being cultivated in the Church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

There are two kinds of people that this message will impact.

The First – those disciples who long for, and yearn after, God’s truth in all things, and detest the infiltration of the world in the Church.

The Second – those of us who, at this very moment are experiencing, in our soul, push-back from the flesh against this message, which has not even begun to be preached.

What are we teaching your children about Christmas?

Are we carefully protecting our children from Christmas services, preaching and teaching, in case they hear the truth about Santa Claus?

There is nothing sinful or evil, per say, in giving gifts and preparing good food at Christmas time for those that we love.

Remember, evil can come in various shades of black! There is a type of “evil” that simply means it isn’t good or effective in doing what Scripture says it should do, its “ineffective” or “unfruitful.” it doesn’t necessarily mean hateful, mean, sinister, wicked, or motivated by a desire to inflict harm. It simply means our concept of The Truth fails to accomplish the Biblical concept of God’s truth.

Practicing The Power

Sam Storm

This would relate to any thought or intention of our heart that we would consider to be good, from “God’s perspective”.

Be careful what you sow this Christmas because it will produce fruit.

One of Jesus parables, in the Gospel of Matthew, when he was teaching about sowing “Kingdom of God life producing principles” is “The Parable of the Weeds”.

I believe that portions of this parable can be genuinely transferred to our “Sowing of the Word of God” “ Discipleship” “Ministry”.

Now all of the afore mentioned, and let me add, Genuine Sowing of the Word, Genuine Discipleship, Genuine Ministry, has everything to do with making disciples of Jesus, and equipping and training them for the Ministry of “Building up the Body of Christ” the goal being that the Body of Christ, true disciples of Jesus, are together, being transformed into the One and Only, “Image and Likeness” of the One and Only “True God” and little or nothing to do with what has become associated with the meaning of Christmas.

So, what are these transferable portions of this parable?

I am so glad you asked.

Let us, first of all, look at the parable in its entirety.

Matthew 13:24–30 (ESV) — 24 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27 And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.

1. This parable is in relation to the “Kingdom of Heaven”.

a. When Jesus was in the midst of his earthly ministry, which is where we are now, carrying on his ministry, where did he say the Kingdom of God was? WITHIN YOU. So, Jesus is using this parable to describe the kingdom of God on the inside of you, in your soul, not a geographical location.

2. A man sowing seeds.

a. Sowing the life-giving Kingdom of God principles into the souls of Disciples of Jesus, or the Gospel Message, again, the “life-giving Kingdom of God principles” into the souls of potential disciples of Jesus.

1. Now with regard to the latter, unbelievers, we are talking about the message of Salvation, the sacrifice of Jesus, God’s Son, and all that that means for the unbeliever. For it is only The Gospel Message that has the power for salvation (Romans 1:16 (ESV) — 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.)

3. The Enemy came and sowed weeds

a. Who are the sowers of God’s word who are carrying on the minister of Jesus? WE ARE!

i. There has been sown, by the Holy Spirit, and the ministers of Jesus, Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers, an abundance of the seeds of the life-giving principles of the Kingdom of God into our souls, that should have produced fruit, Kingdom Life experience, within which are the seeds which when planted in the soul of another, have the power and potential to produce the same fruit, Kingdom Life experience in others WHO RECEIVE IT.

b. The problem is though, there are two spiritual powers bidding for our permission to sow their seeds into our souls. These seeds will produce after their own kind.

i. One will produce Kingdom of God Life experience.

ii. The other will produce Death and Destruction.

iii. One is very up front about his intentions.

iv. The other is deceptive and often sugar-coats his intentions.

c. This is what the Wheat and the Tares represent in this parable.

i. The Wheat represents the pure truth from God which will produce that which God sends it forth to produce “Life in Abundance” “Kingdom of God Life”

i. The Tares are the deceptions of Satan which eventually produce “Death and Destruction”

1. Two things about these Tares.

a. These Tares or Weeds are, in fact, know as Darnel, a seed which so closely resembles Wheat, that only a knowledgeable or experienced person would be able to tell the difference. (if you already believe that you can easily tell the difference between the truth of God and Satan’s sugarcoated deceptions, then this message is specifically for you)

b. When Tares and Wheat are planted together, they grow like identical twins. And they continue like this until they produce fruit. (seed) Once they produce fruit now the difference is quite evident, but it is in the invisible quality where the difference is quite dramatic. Wheat can bring life to a person who is starving to death for lack of nourishing food (the true word of God, Yes!). The Darnel, on the other hand, once ingested, will bring sickness and possibly death to an otherwise perfectly healthy person.

In this World Illustration

In case we might entertain the notion that this is just a fictitious biblical story.

Here is what the experienced and knowledgeable person knows, as opposed to what the inexperienced and innocent person knows, about Darnel.

As you listen to the following try to filter the content trough the Parable of the Weeds

Family

Po-a-cee-a (Gram-in-ee) Plants/Weeds of the grass family.

Origin

Countries in the Mediterranean region.

Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, countries that encompass the Mediterranean Sea.

Naturalised distribution(settled in, made its home) (global)

The Tare is widely naturalized in the subtropics and temperate regions of many countries in the world.

It was Introduced, naturalized/became invasive in East Africa

Tares usually grows in the same production zones as wheat and is considered a weed. In Kenya, it has been recorded in the wheat growing areas of Rift Valley, Na-rok. In Tanzania it has been recorded in Mor-o-gor-o.

Habitat

Tares infests wheat fields and other cultivated land.

Description

Tares is a weedy annual grass (it returns every year). The plant stem can grow up to 1 meter tall. The flower is a large panicle ("ears"). The ears are light and upright and mature ones are black in colour.

Reproduction and dispersal

Tares spreads as a contaminant of wheat seed, (Sown)by people (who think it is wheat) and by farm animals (who ingest it and sow it) by pass(ing) it on.

Similar species

The similarity between wheat and tares is so great that in some regions is referred to as true wheat. Tares and wheat look alike until the ear appears and are distinguished as follows:

The ears on the real wheat are so heavy that it makes the entire plant droop downward (So full of the good that it causes Humility), but tares, whose ears are light, stands up straight (Little or no-good fruit causes Pride in what they think they know). (An Empty Drum Makes The Most Noise)

Wheat ripens to a brown/golden colour, whereas Tares turns black.

When Tares matures, the spikelets turn edge ways to the ra-chis/stem whereas the wheat spikelets remain as they grew previously.

Economic and other uses

Tares grass can be used for fodder and for erosion control. However, these seemingly good uses cannot compensate for this plant's overall negative impacts.

Environmental and other impacts

Tares is a weed of wheat farmlands (biblical context – Local Churches). Even a few grains of this plant will adversely affect crop quality. Its seeds are poisonous to people and livestock. It is very difficult to separate the seeds of Tares from those of other small grain crops as they are similar in size and weight. Tares can be a host to a variety of crop pests and diseases.

Management

The precise management measures adopted for any plant invasion will depend upon factors such as the terrain, the cost and availability of labour, the severity of the infestation and the presence of other invasive species. Some components of an integrated management approach are introduced as follows.

The best form of invasive species management is prevention. If prevention is no longer possible, it is best to treat the weed infestations when they are small to prevent them from establishing (in other words(,early detection and rapid response)). Controlling the weed before it seeds will reduce future problems. Control is generally best applied to the least infested areas before dense infestations are tackled. Consistent follow-up work is required for sustainable management.

Preventive measures such as sewing clean seed and preventing seed formation are important means of management. Hand weeding can control this species although this is difficult to undertake early because of the resemblance between this weed and the infested wheat crops.

Biological control method unlikely to be investigated because of the fact that this species is closely related to valuable, forage grasses.

Legislation

Tares has been declared a noxious weed in Kenya under the Suppression of Noxious Weeds Act (CAP 325). Under this act the Minister of Agriculture, can compel landowners who have such declared noxious weeds growing on their land to remove or have it otherwise removed. However, this species is not declared in Uganda and Tanzania.

(In certain countries they have imposed laws to force a landowner to remove tares found on his land, or failing that have a government agency step in and remove it)

But there are other countries who neglect to do anything about Tares.

Now back to our parable about the Tares and the Wheat

It is essential that we as ministers, as sowers, of the seed of the word of God, that we know, and can recognize, the difference between Wheat, the seed of Kingdom life principles that produces Abundant Life, and Tares the deceptive lookalike seed that produces sickness and death.

There is a great need in the Church, the Body of Christ, for equipping and training (Discipleship (being taught the things we assume we know( some of the greatest critics of the church, and leaders of the church come from people who seldom, if ever, study the bible, and that includes those of us who only study just to pass exam tests)) lest we, as innocent inexperienced disciples sow tares among the wheat, or offer tares instead of wheat in the souls of unbelievers.

What are you and I sowing in this planting and reaping season of Christmas?

What does the phrase “I’m just sharing some Christmas love” mean to you?

The Biblical meaning of Christmas love is

John 3:16 (ESV) — 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Luke 2:8–14 (ESV) — 8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Are we sowing Tares or Wheat?

This Christmas sow Life and not sugarcoated Darnel.

Altar Call.

Benediction.