Sowing and Reaping Pastor Mark Hoffman October 12, 2014

Sowing and Reaping Pastor Mark Hoffman October 12, 2014 I want to start by telling a story of good friends of mine in the church. They were here last night. They used to live in this small apartment. It was in a poor part of town. They lived in this kind of dingy apartment. They had several kids. It was cramped. It was small. And to make things worse, they had a landlord that just decided she didn t like them and was going to make their life unhappy. And so, they were in there, and even though they were Christians, they had a bad attitude about the house, where they lived, their neighborhood, their landlord. But they had a dream that they wanted to have their own home. One day as they were reading the scriptures, they came across the passage that said, If you aren t faithful in a little, you won t be faithful in much. And if you are not faithful in that which belongs to another, then who will give you that which is your own? They took it to heart and they decided to change their attitude. So they decided to start looking at that apartment as though they owned it. They started making improvements with their own money. They started to make it look better. And then they started to think, God, show us why you have us here. And they started to find treasure all around them. They started taking the young people in the neighborhood to vacation bible schools and events like that; bring them to church. They started reaching out to their neighbors and their neighbors began to come over to them and receive prayer. They began to start treating their landlord with love and just doing little acts of kindness towards her. And as they did not only did their heart change but the neighborhood began to change. Instead of planting negative seeds around them, they began to plant positive seeds. And then one day, the landlady became their good friend. Now, they had a dream for a house but they didn t have any credit. They didn t have any money for a down payment. Then one day they heard that the City of El Cajon was going to build eight low income houses and so they along with hundreds of other people put their name in. Somehow they believed from the very start that this is going to be their harvest. You know, I am not going to go into this story, but out of those hundreds of people they were one of those eight that got the house. You see, this is a powerful illustration of principle that if you start planting different seeds, you ll get a different harvest. I want to share with you a principle that is so powerful and it is a principle that each and every one of you can put into practice today. There is at least one area (there is probably more) where this principle can begin to transform your life today. Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. Those last nine words whatever a man sows, that he will also reap are some of the most powerful and all inclusive principles in all of life. As I have counseled and watched and worked with thousands of people over the last thirty-five years, I have seen that sowing and reaping is at the very core of how life works. That no other single factor shapes peoples lives as much as the simple truth: whatever you sow, that s what you will reap. Now, many people live in denial of this law. They live as though this law doesn t exist. That they could live any way they choose and not have any consequences. That they could have a good life doing bad things. And so this principle comes with a very specific warning: DO NOT BE DECEIVED. You see, so many people live in denial of this core truth about life. We see this principle of sowing and reaping spoken into existence on the third day of creation. Gen 1:11 Then God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them ; and it was so. Plants would come forth bearing seed that would bring forth more plants that would multiply. Fruit seeds would come bearing seed that would produce not just another fruit but a whole tree that would in time bring forth thousands of fruit. You see, God gave the creation the ability to multiply and increase. He wrote it into the very fabric, into the very DNA of the universe of everything that lives. However, on that day, God put a limit on this 1

very powerful principle. Everything can reproduce and multiply, however, only after its own kind. What this means is that we could use this power in the universe to multiply things and even to produce new things. But, everything can only produce after its own kind. I want you to think about this amazing thing: God created the first humans. He formed them and He breathed into them the breath of life. What an amazing thing God did. However, now every person in this room can produce human life. We could produce life but only after our own kind. You can produce a human being but you can t produce a giraffe. Ladies, I know you are probably glad, that could be a difficult one. God also created plants. He created plants so that we would have food. But now my friends, we can go clear land and we can plant and we can produce food that will feed many other people. But, if you want to produce wheat, there is only one seed you can plant. And if you want corn, you better put in seed corn. Now, this is a universal law. It s not just in agriculture. It s not just in biology. It s in the moral and the spiritual realms. As a matter of fact, it operates in every realm of life there is. You cannot, for instance, ever create good things by doing evil. How foolish it is to think you can steal and lie your way into happiness. Evil can only produce after its own kind. It can only produce more evil. Remember when Jesus restrained Peter there in the garden? They d come to arrest Jesus and Peter took a sword and he was going to kill them. Remember, Jesus stopped him with these words. Matt 26:52 Then Jesus said to him, Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. Personal violence can only produce more violence because everything produces after its own kind. By knowing God s Word, we can reliably predict the outcome of our actions. Look at what Jesus said in Luke 6:37-38. Luke 6:37-38 37 Do not judge, and (guess what!) you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; (forgive or) pardon (you start forgiving people, and guess what, they will start forgiving you) and you will be pardoned. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return. Our actions, well, this is like a recipe for happiness, isn t it? Give and it will be given back to you. That is how the universe works. There is a corresponding and predictable action for everything that you do. In physics, we call it Newton s Third Law or the Law of Motion which is: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The secret, my friends, is to learn to act and not react. If you react to what somebody else does to you, then you are allowing them to determine what seed you are going to plant and therefore what harvest you are going to get. Think about that. If somebody treats you wrong and in a response you do something hateful or something mean, you are letting them make the choice about what seed you sow and that is going to determine what you are going to harvest back. Jesus taught his followers not to react to what others do. Luke 6:27-31 27 But I say to you who hear, (not everybody could hear what Jesus is trying to say) love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. 30 Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. 31 Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. Jesus is not giving us some unworkable, pie in the sky, sissy-boy advice here. This is the creator of the universe telling you how life works and how you can overcome in any circumstance. The way you overcome in any circumstance is you choose what seed you will plant. Because whatever you sow or plant will come back to you multiplied. You ve got to choose the right seed regardless of the circumstances or what anyone else is doing. 2

There is a dangerous lie in our culture today that so many people have accepted, and that is that their life is determined by what other people have done. It s called victimhood. How many of you know that victimhood is one of the strongholds in our culture? It s one of the ways in which individuals and groups see themselves. But the minute you buy into the victimhood culture (that your life is cursed, or determined, or predetermined by what other people do) you cut yourself off from the power of this principle that you can determine your future and your future harvest by what you do and never let anybody, or the acts of anybody in the past, determine the seeds that you are going to plant because you will have to eat the harvest. Now, if you want to fully benefit from this principle of sowing and reaping then you have to understand the dynamics of harvest. To really get sowing and reaping working for you, you have to understand how it works. Now, years ago when I was a young Christian, and when I was new in the ministry, I was just volunteering, I would get so discouraged because I would work with people, I would do the ministry, then I would look around at the circumstances and what people were doing or weren t doing and I would get so discouraged. And, one day after a particularly discouraging weekend, I was reading my Bible and mediating and praying in my discouragement, and I came across a passage and the words on the page of that passage leapt off the page into my heart and they changed my life. And, we are going to look at that short passage and there are six principles. If you have a pen and a paper, you are going to want to take these down. If you don t, borrow them, you want to take down these six principles because you want to take it home and think about circumstances in your life in light of what Jesus teaches us here. Mark 4:26-29 26 And He was saying, The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; 27 and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows how, he himself does not know. 28 The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. 29 But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come. Six realities about sowing and reaping. Every one will pay off in your life. 1) Without sowing there can be no harvest. The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil (Mark 4:26). Every good harvest from God s Kingdom is because somebody planted a seed. If we plant no seeds, there will be no harvest. Every harvest depends upon two things: someone to plant the seed and God who causes the growth. That saying is so true: Without God, we cannot. But without us, He will not. And so, if we are too afraid or too full of unbelief, or if we are too passive or too frozen to plant a seed, then we cannot expect a harvest. The Bible says faith without works is dead. So, my question to you, that you should ask yourself is, if you want a harvest, what are you willing to do? What are you planning to do to get a harvest? Let s look at the number two truth. At that is, and you have to remember this 2) You harvest in a different season than you plant. The man plants a seed and it says and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day (Mark 4:27a). And time passes, and days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months. Because you see, there is a growing season in which the farmer must be patient and wait while the seeds are germinating and becoming the harvest. And, you know, the tricky thing is this you might come to Christ and you might turn your life around and you are waiting and you are sowing good seed and yet you have got to harvest some of the harvest from the past when you were planting bad seed. And, so you are in the place and you are wanting and waiting for good seed and you are still dealing (how many of you guys know what I am talking about?) with harvesting some bad seed in the past. But don t worry about it. God is with you in that. He will take you through it. He will strengthen you. He will show you the way out and you will get the harvest in the future for the seeds you are planting today. Faith and patience can be tough, but they are necessary to sustain you until you get the harvest. And, while you are waiting, you must believe that there will be a harvest because God has promised it. You must believe in the 3

Creator s law of sowing and reaping. You must believe that in any area you plant good seeds, you will get a harvest. Look at these promises Galatians 6:9 Let us not lose heart in doing good (or planting good), for in due time (after the growing season) we will reap if we do not grow weary (and quit). James 5:7-8 Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains. 8 You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord (to reward you, the coming of the Lord to bring you a harvest, it s coming) is near. Let s look at the third thing we have to remember, I want you to apply this to your own circumstances. And that is 3) The seeds are growing into the harvest even if I can t see it or understand how. We read the seed sprouts and grows how, he (that is the farmer) himself does not know (Mark 4:27b). Especially back then, they didn t even know as much about it as most of you do today. All he knew was that the soil produces crops by itself. If you plant a seed, it sprouts and grows and it doesn t matter if you understand how the process works. It works because God has encoded that seed with the power to multiply. It works because He has encoded that soil with what it needs to do to feed the seed. It is the same in the Kingdom of God. You must believe that the seed is growing even when you can t understand or see how. People look at the ground or they look at things that are happening and they think, I don t see anything happening. I don t see how God is going to bring this about. I don t see how God can possibly take these circumstances and bring about what I believe He promised towards me. You ve got to believe it before you see it. You ve got to believe it even though you can t understand how God would do it. How often does God do something that you never would have imagined? In fact, isn t that often how He does it? He comes right out of left field with an answer and you think, Man, I did not see that coming. Seeds grow under the surface. They grow out of sight. I use to be like a man who would go into a garden and stare at that garden and just stare at the ground hoping to see something. One day God said, Stop looking. There is nothing to see yet. Just trust me. The seeds are growing. The seeds that you planted are growing. My laws of sowing and reaping work. Just relax and trust Me. You know what? I did and I got the harvest in those areas I was hoping for. 4) The harvest can be hard to recognize while it is developing. It can be hard to recognize. Look at what it says, The soil produces crops by itself; (and here is how it comes) first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head (Mark 4:28). In other words, the early stages of the harvest don t resemble at all what you are hoping for. Imagine there is a man who just loves corn on the cob. He gets tired of going to the store and buying it so he says, I am going to grow my own. So, he goes in his backyard and he plants lots of seed corn. One day, he looks down and he sees these little blades growing up. It doesn t look anything at all like what was on the package when he planted the seeds. I remember when I was a little boy, I cleared out an area in our backyard and I fixed the soil. I was probably about eleven, and I planted the seeds and I was so excited. One day, these little weed things started popping up, just these little blades. I thought, Well, I am not going to have any weeds growing up with my vegetables! so I started to pull up all those weeds. Well, I didn t recognize that those were the vegetables. And you see, what happens is so often, what is the beginning of the harvest doesn t look like what we are expecting and so we curse it, we pull it up. You know, you could be praying for a loved one and you are praying, God bless them and help them and everything seems to be going the exact opposite. It doesn t look anything at all like what you prayed for. And, it is not until years later when the harvest comes and that person is telling their testimony and you find out those very bad things that happened were exactly part of the process of your harvest coming due. Often the crop does not resemble what we are hoping for until right before the harvest. 4

5) You can t control the harvest time. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come (Mark 4:29). You see, you must be patient during the growing season, but then you must be prepared to act when the harvest comes. That means you had to have kept that sickle at hand, and you had to have kept that sickle sharp. If you stopped believing in the harvest, you probably lost the sickle or forgot where you put it. Now, you ve got to do both. You ve got to be patient and believe there will be a harvest and you ve got to be prepared when the harvest permits to move and to act. You ve got to be ready. 6) You will always harvest more than you sow. When the harvest permits he puts in the sickle. Look at what Luke 6:38 says. Luke 6:38 Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure pressed down, shaken together, and running over. In other words, you ll give and then you will take the basket and they will start filling it up and then you could see there is more than your basket can hold so you start to shake the basket to get rid of all the air so then you start to press it down in every way you can, but it still comes in until it fills it, until it crowns, until it starts pouring over the side. You always get back more than you sow because God has encoded multiplication and fruitfulness into the DNA of creation. You plant one seed, you get a stock of corn with several heads and I suppose thousands of seed corn in those heads. When God created Adam and Eve, the very next thing He did is He blessed them. And, when God blesses, He gives you the ability and the power and He said, Be fruitful and multiply. Seeds that are planted increase and multiply into the harvest. Paul says something very important in this next verse. You have to read this carefully. 2 Cor 9:10 Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. Increase the harvest of your righteousness. It says right there, if you look carefully, that God gives us two things. He gives seed to the sower and bread for food. So, God gives two things: seed to sow, bread to eat. The seed that we take and crush and make into bread, we eat and it s gone. The seed that we take and plant multiplies and comes back to us in a multiplied harvest. The potential for multiplication is only on what you give away. That is why Jesus said, It is better to give than to receive. Because what you receive and use is gone. What you give multiplies and comes back in a powerful harvest. The blessing, the multiplication, the miracle is on what you plant and give away. The way out of lack and the way out of scarcity is to give. Do you know, if we took all the needs there are in this church and we began to share and meet each other s needs, everything would multiply because when you give away it multiplies and pretty soon there would be no lack. The tendency when you don t have much is to hoard it. It s good to give to the poor, but it is better to teach the poor to give because it is in giving that you can prosper. It is only in that which you give that multiplies back. Even when you have just a little, you have some seed. Do you remember the story at the temple? All the rich people are putting their money in and He sees that widow. She has one little copper coin called a mite. I don t even know if you could buy a meal with it. It said that was all that she had. But she had a lot more than that because she had an understanding of the Kingdom. She looked at that one little copper coin and she called it seed. And, rather than go out and buy a couple of Twinkies, she said, This is seed and I am sowing it and she threw it in. Jesus commended her. And we don t know the rest of the story, but I do know sowing and reaping and I know she got a harvest. God taught me the power of giving out of need when I was just a young man. I am preaching a chapter out of this book. A lot of 5

you have read this book, Unlocking the Kingdom, that is the one we are giving away today, and this is a chapter out of this book. I tell a number of stories out of this book when Linda and I, when we were poor and how when we were faced with great need, God would give us an opportunity and we would give and we would be multiplied. You see, the simple fact was, I was working at church, I was going to school, our financial needs were here, my income was here. And there would be several times God would call us to give, show us an opportunity and Linda would say (Linda is more practical than me) she would say, How can we possibly give? and I would say, How can we not afford to give? We cannot live on what I make. Unless we can tap into God s economy, unless we can practice multiplication, we can t make it. And, we lived that way all those years, and God was faithful. You know, people look at this church and they think, How do you do what you do? We are really not that big of church and yet we operate 3 schools, 5 Youth Ventures, 31 Bible clubs. We have buses running over there. We have huge outreaches in Cuba, Kenya, and other places. And they say, How do you do it? And you know how we do it? We learned how to give out of need. Every time we face a crisis and it looks like there is no way for us to go on, God gives us an opportunity to give, to sow. I remember when we were building our first sanctuary over here. We were just a little church and we didn t have any money and we got to a point when all of a sudden the Fire Marshal and other people put all these additional costs. We were just short. We needed $30,000 to finish the project. Everybody had already given everything they had. We had $7,000 in the account, $30,000 that we needed. That might as well be a mountain back then to us. As we prayed as a board, we learned that there was a church just a few blocks from here that had just rented a building and they didn t have any chairs. And so we took $3,000 of that $7,000 and we bought them all the chairs that they needed. Because we saw that that was our opportunity. God gave us that opportunity. And you know what? Within about three weeks, all $30,000 that we needed came in. I don t know if you remember this but about a year ago my son, Neil, was telling a story up here, and I didn t even remember it. He was half way through the story and I am thinking, I don t remember that. And you know why? Because it is so common in what we do. But, it was about eight years ago when he was a (Youth Venture) Center Director, and I remembered it after he got half way through the story. We just paid our rent on all four centers and we had $2,500 left in our account. I gathered all the directors and I said, Okay, we just paid the rent, the gas and electric, and we are going to have to shut the doors to all four centers unless God does a miracle. We only have $2,500 and that can only mean one thing. Somebody needs that $2,500. We need to pray and we need to figure out who God wants us to give that $2,500 to. There must be a need because He has us in a place where we ve got to sow a seed. And so, we prayed about it and I heard about a ministry called World Impact. They had a storefront on El Cajon Blvd about 49 th Street or something. So I went down there with the $2,500. I walked into the door and handed it to the guy. We had a word of prayer and I came back. You know, within a couple of weeks later, we got a check for I think it was $33,000 from somebody who didn t even go to the church. No expectation. You see, in order to reap, you have to sow when God gives you the opportunity. This church has always operated on that from the beginning and we still do. We give when we have a lot, we give when we have a little, we give when we have nothing. And when we were approached about this Youth Venture in Alpine, you know, my first thought was, We can t afford it. There is no way. This is such a huge increase in Youth Venture s budget. I thought, We have such a hard time just getting the volunteers for the four centers we have. That is what I thought a first. Then Dave and I talked and we thought, How can we not do this? Here is a center that is reaching young people. How can we not sow ourselves into that community, into those young people? And we know that if we sow ourselves into it, God will take care of it. It will multiply and come back. I want you to do something for me. I want you very quickly to take out your wallet. I know this sounds dumb but I want you to do it. I want this to make an impression on you. Ladies, go into your purse and I want you to open it up, and I want you to look at what is in there. Now, what do you see? A moth? Ha Ha. You know what you see? You see bread and you see seed. But it looks the same. But I know that there is bread and I know that there is seed in there because we just read the Word of God that says, He gives bread to eat and seed to sow. How many of you guys remember just reading that. So I know in there there is bread and there is seed. So which 6

is which? How can you tell which is which? How do you know which of that is bread and which is seed? That is entirely up to you. It all looks the same until you give it away and sow it. And the moment you sow it, it becomes seed and you are planting the way for God to have a harvest. Now, sowing and reaping is a powerful principle that works in every area of life. This principle will transform your life and it works on every level. If you give a smile, you will get a smile. If you give respect, you will get respect. If you show kindness, you will get kindness. If you act hostile, you will get hostility. If you act indifferent, you will get indifference. This is a principle that in every way, at your work place, in your neighborhood, this is a principle that transforms our lives. It is a powerful key to change your life. And you all have some seed. You all have something to give, friendship. Give friendship, you will receive friends. Don t come to the church and then go home upset because nobody said hi. Go and say, hi! You don t go out looking to receive. You go looking to give. If you become a giver, you will be overwhelmed at what comes back. Don t ever go and check off how people treated you, or didn t treat you, or said or didn t say, or gave you or didn t give you forget about what your parents did or didn t do. At some point, you want to plant seeds. And the Bible says that if you sow sparingly, you will reap sparingly. If you sow generously you will reap generously. So give generously on every level and it will multiply. 7