Spring Planting

So, we are starting a new series today called The Conversationalist, and this will lead up until Easter, and we're going to share different stories about Jesus. And Jesus had a way of talking with people. He carried on one conversation at a time. He would share with people very real things that happened in the world in that day. He particularly used farming, and we're going to talk about farming today.

The first parable I'm going to talk about today is the farmer and the seeds. So, the interesting thing is it's spring, right? Spring is today. Did you know that? This is the first day of spring.

How many of you are happy about spring? I'm incredibly grateful that it's spring because I don't like winter. I hate winter. I'm excited about spring because yesterday was 80 degrees. It was out.

I went outside. It was great. I was happy. I got through. Man, in January and February, it's like when it comes around, I'm like, okay, what am I going to do to get through this?

What am I going to do this year to get through it? And I love it for that reason, you know, that I get past winter and I'm in spring now. But another reason I love spring so much is it's life-giving. I love the fact that flowers begin to grow, things come back to life. And many of you are probably out yesterday going to Home Depot.

I went into Home Depot to get some outdoors things done, and people were all up in there buying stuff and fixing up their yard and building stuff. And it's just that time of year. And some of you are gardeners, I'm sure. How many of you like gardening? Are you all gardeners?

Yeah, okay. We've got a couple in here. Some of you are like, I'm just going to go to the produce stand and get what I want. I don't want to garden. It's too much work.

But flowers and trees and the smell in the air of spring is here. So I'm asking you what kind of seeds are you going to plant this spring? And I'm not talking, you know, practically. I'm talking spiritually. What kind of seeds are you going to plant this spring?

There are at least half a dozen parables that Jesus shares on gardening. Gardening was really big in that day. And he shared so many spiritual parables about gardening and parallels about gardening because it was very common. And he shared about, the fact is, this could help you with your life. This could help you with your career.

This could help you with the people that you're closest to, even the people that you're distanced from. You know, what kind of seeds are you going to plant this season? So let me take you to the parable of the growing seed, okay? The growing seed. The growing seed, the farmer.

And if you'll turn with me to Mark 4, verse 26. Mark 4, verse 26. You can also, if you're online with us, we're so thankful you're here with us today. Go ahead and comment and let us know you're here. You can go to our Bible app, the events page, find Salt Church, and click on that.

And we have all the notes there for you today. It says this. He also said, this is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters, or plants, if you want to call it that, plants, seed on the ground. Day and night, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows.

Though he does not know how, because it's in the ground, it's underground, so he can't see the seed coming up. All by itself, the soil produces grain. First the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. And as soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come. Now, if you want to understand life, you want to understand how life really works, we need to learn the principle of seeding.

We need to learn how to seed properly. And before I go into this, I'm going to give you a whole... Hold on with me for a second, okay? Don't start to leave. I'm going to give you ten points today, okay?

Ten points. That's the largest point sermon I've ever given because there are ten spiritual laws to seeding. There are spiritual laws to seeding, and I really believe this is going to dramatically make a difference in your life if you hold on to these particular points. But before I get started, here's some lessons to learn. God expects growth in your life and in our church, okay?

God expects growth in our lives personally and in our church. He expects our church to grow. He expects our lives to grow. He expects things to happen in our lives and in our church. Because things that are healthy grows, right?

We can't stay babies forever. We can't live on milk forever. We have got to grow. Healthy things grow. So you need to ask the question, am I growing spiritually or am I growing culturally or superficially, okay?

Are you growing spiritually? Because God expects you to grow. It's good for you. It's good for the church. We can grow together as a church.

And if we all are healthy, if we all are invested in the kingdom of God and growing together. The second thing is any fruit in my life comes from seeds planted by people. Somebody plants a seed, right? Everybody plants a seed. I mean, a garden just doesn't pop up.

Somebody plants that seed. Everybody plants a seed. And you plant a seed in your life and other people can plant a seed in your life as well. So it's okay to practice discrimination about who's going to plant seeds in your life. Who am I allowing to plant seeds in my life?

That's what you've got to ask yourself. Who am I allowing to plant seeds in my life? And it's not just your family. It's not just your friends. It's just not your inner circle.

You all have people that do that in your life that are close to you. But how about people that are outside your circle? Did you know they're planting seeds in your life too? Did you know CNN's planting seeds in your life? Did you know that Fox News is planting seeds in your life?

Did you know that media is planting seeds in your life? Do you know that influencers are planting seeds in your life? Do you know that movie stars and sports heroes, they're planting seeds in your life? Who are you allowing to plant seeds in your life? Without us even knowing it, people are planting seeds in our life.

And we need to spend less time in Facebook and more time in God's book if we want to plant the right seeds in our life. We don't need to be watching the news. We need to be reading the good news, okay? And we need to be sharing the good news. That's what we need to do.

You've got a season primed for growth. We've got a season where we can build. This is what God wants. He wants us to grow. And he wants us to be seed planters.

And we've got to be careful who we're allowing into our lives, the seeds that are planting in our lives, so that we can in turn plant seeds in other people's lives. So, negativity, gossip, hate, all that stuff. Are people planting those seeds in your life or are they planting love? Third thing, we often can't see the seeds growing in our lives. We often can't see the seeds growing in our lives.

As you learn, the parable talks about the seed being down in the ground in dark places. Now, just because we can't see the seed, when you plant a seed, you can't actually see the seed grow, right? I mean, at first, anyway. Once it becomes a plant, you see it come out of the ground. But the seed's growing anyway.

It's always growing, even when we can't see it. And I would say that seeds grow in our lives even through dark times. Even through heavy, dark times. Even when it's down in the dirt. Even when it's in the muck.

Even when it's in the manure. The manure sometimes fertilizes. You know how it is? The manure, if you go to the Amish country, there's manure spread over the fields, you know? And it helps the crop grow.

Well, sometimes you're in the manure of life, right? It's a really dark place in life. But you know what? God is growing seeds. And you're seeding in the middle of that.

And you're growing. You're growing. And sometimes God carries. A PROMISE forward. It's through those times.

The fourth thing is growth in my life is slow and gradual and happens in stages. It's not going to happen tomorrow, okay? You can't just take a pill and become like Jesus. Boy, I wish we could. Some of you need to take a pill.

Just playing. Just playing. I'm so glad I got Alex here. He makes it so much easier. It takes time.

It takes time. It takes time. So that's why we use this, Philippians 1.6. It says, Be confident in this, that he who began a good work in you, y'all know this, will continue that work until it's finally finished on the day when Jesus Christ comes back again.

It's going to happen. He's doing a work in you, even when you don't know it. So what do I do to continue to keep growing? God has a part, okay? But you have a part as well.

God has a part, but you have a part. You can't do what God can only do in you, but God won't do what He's given you the capacity to choose to do. Rick Warren said that, actually. That's a quote. You can't do what God can only do in you.

That means that you can't make things happen in you that only God can do. But God won't do what He's giving you the capacity to choose to do, okay? So the best way to ensure growth in our life, the best way to make growth happen in our life is these spiritual laws. Now here's the thing about laws, okay? We've got physical laws and we've got spiritual laws.

God set physical laws in place, how creation works. You know, there's laws in creation. There's laws in the universe, in the physical universe, but there's also spiritual laws. God sets up spiritual laws and they work. He placed them out there.

They're beyond our ability to see, but if we look in the spiritual, if we honor these laws in the spiritual, it could be applied to every area of our lives and we will find success in every area of our lives, including financially, relationally, spiritually, emotionally, in every area of our lives if we follow these ten spiritual laws. The first one is this. Everything starts as a seed. Everything. Everything starts as a seed.

Our dreams start as a seed. This building was started as a seed. Somebody had an idea for a theater here. Ideas, achievements, everything, every vision is a seed. Every idea is a seed.

Everything starts as a seed. You were a seed, right? You started as a seed. Your mother and your father decided to have you and you started as a seed. Everything starts as a seed.

And you exist because of the seed principle, a spiritual seed principle. And it says this in Genesis 1-11. Then God said, let the land produce vegetation, seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. And it was so. So everything in the universe started as a seed.

Every seed has this too, exponential potential. You have exponential potential. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for giving me a break there.

See, here's what happens. So if you plant a kernel of seed, what happens? You don't just get a seed back. You get a whole plant back. And in that plant is shucks of corn, corn, which have hundreds of kernels and you have thousands of kernels, right?

It exponentially comes back more than you see. You don't just get back what you put in. You get more. And Job 8-7 says this, and I love this. Think about it.

As our church grows, we are a small church. Comparatively speaking, to a lot of churches here in the road. I mean, we're bigger than some, but we're definitely not, we're definitely in the lower tier as a smaller church, okay? And everything starts as a seed, right? Everything starts as a seed.

And I really take heart to this thing in Job. Job 8-7 says, And though your beginning was small and significant, your latter days will be very great. We're starting as a seed. This is a seed today. And if all of us are seeding, all of us realize we start as a seed, whether it's in your personal life, whether it's in our church life, we're starting as a seed, but we have the potential to grow and become powerful in the name of Jesus for His kingdom and His glory.

And I don't know if anybody else is here and is passionate about it as I am, but I am. If y'all want to come along with me and go on this ride and let's reach this city and let's reach people for Christ, it has the potential to be amazing. It has potential to be one of the largest ministry movements in the church. And so everything starts as a seed. We are at seed stage, right?

We're seeding, we're seeding, we're seeding, we're seeding, but the fruit is coming. Number two, a seed has no power until it is planted. A seed has no power until it's planted. If you just leave it in the bag or you leave it in the box and sit it up, it's just not going to grow, right? You've got to plant the seed in order for it to grow.

If you're not planting seeds, then don't expect growth. Don't expect anything from it. Don't expect any fruit from it. And then some of you are like, well, God is, He's not doing anything in my life. Well, are you sitting just, are you just sitting around expecting Him to do something?

You're not meeting Him halfway? He's waiting for you to seed something so He can do something with it. And if you don't seed, don't expect Him to do anything with it. Jesus said it like this, unless a grain of wheat is planted and buried in the soil, it cannot produce or reproduce. It will remain only a single seed, right?

And then He foreshadows His death here, and this is real significant. We're coming up on Easter, right? But if it dies, it will produce many seeds and much fruit. So He's talking to His disciples about this. Something's getting ready to happen to me, and it's going to bring about a church movement that seeds.

But He's making a personal truth here to them as well. He says, if you selfishly hold on to your own life, you will lose it. If you selfishly hold on to your own life, you will lose it. But if you give up living for this world, you will gain eternal life. You will gain eternal life.

You've got to be willing to give up on your hopes. Not give up on, but give up your hopes and dreams. Not that you're letting go of your hopes and dreams, but you've got to give up your hopes and dreams to Jesus, okay? If you want God to do something significant in your life and exponential in your life, you've got to be willing to give up your dreams. You've got to be willing to give up your hopes.

You've got to be willing to give up your plans. You've got to be able to say, listen, I'm willing to give it all, Jesus, for you. I'm willing to set it all down for you because I'm trusting you. I've got to die to my dreams in order to fully live the way I'm intended to live, to live in the fullness of God. But lots of people in life, they would rather complain about how bad life is instead of making an effort to dig up the soil in their ground and start planting some seeds.

So the question is, what do you need to do today to get where I want to be tomorrow? What do I need to do today to get to where I want to be tomorrow? What do I need to do today? What seed do I need to plant? Do I have a habit that I've got to get rid of or a habit I've got to insert and seed in my life to get better at what I'm doing today?

Is there a thought pattern or whatever it is? What do I need to give up and what do I need to add to get to where I need to be tomorrow? Now, you won't change overnight because it takes a while for those seeds to grow, and I'll get to that in a minute. You don't want to give up, but what do I need to let go of? What do I need to put in my life?

What do I need to seed today so I can get to where I want to tomorrow? So what seed am I planting? Am I actually planting seeds? In the now and remember for the seed of the seed of the seed every time of seedlist I can ask all Consort Mel Thank you. Is that point?

Now, people also do this. They complain that I don't have any seeds to give. I don't really have a seed in my life. And that's just bogus. That's just wrong because we all have seeds.

It starts where we are right now. See, what small beginnings are about, everything starts as a seed. So, if you're going to plant a seed, you're not going to have all the seeds at the same time. You're going to have to start with what you have because those who start with little, with what they have, God's not going to trust you with more seeds if you can't plant the seeds you have now. It doesn't matter who you are or where you are in life or what you're doing.

You have a seed that you can plant. You have something that you can plant. And Jesus used this principle even about the cross. He says, I'm going to die. I'm going to give.

The only thing I really have to give is myself. And he gave his life. He gave it all. Because whenever, here's the deal, whenever you have a need, plant a seed. Whenever you have a need, you have a need, you want to complain about having a need?

Are you planting seeds? How about plant a seed and see how God takes care of that need? Isaiah says it like this. Does a farmer always plow and never plant? Is he forever cultivating his soil but never planting it?

No. The farmer knows just what to do for God has given him, what? Understanding. The third point is, some seeds should be planted instead of eaten. Some of you are eating all your seeds.

You're eating it now because you've got to have it now. You've got to do it now. I've got to get rid of all my, you know, I'm young. I've got to do all these things now. I don't want to wait until later.

And I get that. I'm there too. And I'm not saying don't go on, you know, vacations while you're young. Don't go on adventures while you're young and things like that. I get that.

But some of you, that's all you do. You just eat up. I've got to have this now. I'm not going to wait until later. I'm going to put it on credit.

I'm going to do it now. Now, but Joseph actually teaches us something about that in Genesis. As you remember, Joseph was prime minister of Egypt. He got elevated to prime minister of Egypt. And he found a way to take care of the people that were going through this severe famine.

Remember the severe famine that was taking place and people were starving and people needed to have food. And they came to him and they said, we'll sell you our land. We'll sell you our lives. We'll be your slaves. We'll be your slaves.

They were so desperate. They were selling themselves. They were so desperate. They were willing to give themselves, their children, their everything into slavery in order to be fed. And Egypt took them over.

Egypt took them in through Joseph. And here's what Joseph said. So Joseph said, so Joseph brought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields because the famine was too severe for them. The land became Pharaoh's.

And Joseph said to the people, now that I have brought you and your land today for Pharaoh, or bought, excuse me, bought you and your land today for Pharaoh, here is seed for Pharaoh, here is seed for you so you can plant the ground. But when the crop comes in, give a fifth of it to Pharaoh. The other four fifths you may keep as seed for the fields and as food for yourself and your households and your children. So he's given them a long-term solution to the problem. He says, I'm going to give you this seed.

Now you're going to give what to do to Pharaoh. You're going to give you this 20%. You're going to give that to Pharaoh. You're going to give that back to the land. But you're going to take the rest and you're going to plant it in the ground.

And it's going to take care of you for on and on and on, you know, in generations. So we need to take the seed that we're receiving now. We need to begin to plant that seed. We don't need to just eat it all up. Stop eating all your seeds.

Okay? It's not ready to...it can be reproduced and it can grow much larger and you have more to live on for the future. You've got to prepare for the future. And that's what the people said to Joseph after everything had happened.

You have saved our lives. You have saved our lives, Joseph, by this advice. So do you have any seed to plant in bad times? That's the question. In the same way that it takes faith to tithe, it takes faith to save.

Did you know that? See, it takes faith to save. You can either work for your money or your money can work for you, right? And many of you are probably working for your money, right? You're living day in and day out.

Here's what Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 9-10. And God, who supplies seed to the farmer and bread to eat, will give you more and more seed to plant. And He will make it grow so that you can then, what? Give away even more and more fruit for your harvest. So what is the purpose of wealth?

To give. The purpose of wealth is so I can give more away. John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in his time, was asked a question. How did you become so successful and so rich?

Here's what he said. I give 10% to God. I give 10% to savings. And I live on the 80%. 10-10-20 kind of goes along with Scripture.

They gave 20% to Pharaoh. Maybe that's a good principle for all of us to follow. Give what God is owed. Of course, he's owed everything, right? So why not just 10%?

Put 10% in savings and live on the rest. Live on the other 80%. The fourth point is whatever I plant is what I will harvest. Whatever I plant is what I will harvest. If you plant beans, you're not going to get watermelon back, okay?

Well, I put some beans in the ground. I thought I was going to get some juicy watermelon out of this. I don't know what happened. I mean, I'm just planting beans. Some of you are planting beans and expecting watermelon.

You're planting something and you're expecting something else. But what you plant, you will get back. This is called the law of reproduction. Whatever a farmer plants, he gets back that specific crop. So, over and over in Genesis, it says, after its own kind.

After its own kind. So, whatever you plant, 100%, you are going to get what you plant back. So, what's your planting? Decide what you're planting. What are you planting?

What do I want? That's what I'm going to plant. If I want financial blessings, then I'm going to plant. I'm going to be generous with my finances. If I want love back, I'm going to love others exceptionally.

I'm going to honor others if I want honor. If I want to be respected, I'm going to respect others, right? Galatians 6-7 says it like this. Do not deceive yourself. No one makes a fool of God.

You will reap exactly what you plant. And it works both ways. Deceit, if you're going to be deceptive. If you're going to be bitter. If you're going to be angry.

If you're going to be mean. Guess what? You're going to get exactly back what you give. In fact, it works in so many different areas. Proverbs 11-18 says it like this.

The wicked earn deceptive wages, but the sower of righteousness reaps a true reward. It works in relationships. This isn't in your notes, but I threw down a few other verses of Scripture. Proverbs 13 says, A stupid person plants discord and conflict by making arrogant assumptions, but those who listen to advice will be wise. Here's another one in Proverbs 16.

Troublemakers plant seeds of strife and their gossip separates the best of friends. It can really, really hurt relationships. You get that back. Society. Those who plant seeds of injustice will harvest disaster.

Their reign of terror will come to an end. 여러분, if you're wrong, with respect to the new product. You plant injustice, you get back injustice. If you plant gossip, you get back gossip, right? And it will ruin things.

But here's what Hosea says, Hosea 10, 12. If you plant the good seeds of righteousness, you'll harvest a crop of my love. So plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, so that he may come and shower goodness on you like rain. Isn't that beautiful? He just wants to shower rain on us.

He wants to shower this beauty and this rain. I mean, whatever you sow, you can expect to get back. Jacob cheated his father and his brother. And what did he get back? He was cheated by his father-in-law with Leah.

You get back what you get. Last week, we talked about Haman, and we know what happened there, right? He set up for Mordecai to be put to death, and he ended up being put to death on the very stake that he created for Mordecai. What you plant is what you get back. But if you plant character, if you plant reputation, if you plant a good destiny, if you plant good habits, you get back those things, right?

You plant good seed, you get back those, and what happens? God will shower blessings. He will shower. The spring rain will fall over your life. It will be beautiful, and we're living a beautiful life in Christ.

Number five, I'm not the only one planting seeds in my life. Now, this goes back to the very beginning. I'm not the only one planting seeds in my life. This is why you have to be careful who you allow to plant seeds in your life, because you're a result of somebody planting seeds. Everybody plants seeds, right?

It affects everyone in some way. Whether it's good or bad, you might be dealing with some things because people have planted seeds before you came. Maybe it's an ancestor, maybe it's a grandmother or a great-grandmother or a great-great-grandmother, and it affected your parents, and now you are facing the consequences of seeds that were planted. So we have to be careful what kind of seeds we plant, and we can plant the right seeds today. We don't have to live in our past.

We can live in our future. We can plant good seeds today in the ground. I'm not the only one planting seeds in my life. John 4, 38 says, I have sent you to reap a harvest in a field where you did not work. Others work there, and you profit from their work.

So you want to plant for future generations. Salt Church, we are planting right now for future generations, even in this ministry. We're creating a ministry, a foundation, where generation after generation after generation can come after us. Amen? They can be affected by the plant.

The reason you're here today is because the reason we're even where we are is because other churches and other people who have gone before us have planted seeds in this ministry. The reason you have an environment to come to, to worship the Lord, a family to come to, to integrate with, to love each other, and to grow together with is because people have planted into this church. They've planted seeds so that you can have a place. So everything that you plant now, whether it's in the church, in your family, in your story, plant them well so that future generations can reap and bring in a harvest from that. And your harvest is legacy.

Amen? Number six, I harvest in a different season than I plant. If you plant in the spring, you don't expect the plants to come until the summer, right? Most of you that plant tomatoes probably are planting tomatoes right now. You're getting the yard ready.

If you haven't done it already, you're expecting to do that in the next couple of weeks because when the, you know, the dry season comes or the warm season comes or even the hot season comes, because tomatoes can thrive in hot water. You're already prepared to ground, you've already seeded the ground, it's already come up because if you start too late it will never take off, right? So when you seed something, when you seed something in your life, don't expect it to happen overnight. Don't expect to take a pill and be like Jesus, right? Like I said earlier, there's a different season for everything.

Rome wasn't built in a day and skills don't happen in a minute. Those of you who are older in age, y'all know that skills were developed over years and years from the time you were young until now. You didn't quite get it then, but you're getting it now and you're still learning. The older you get, the more you realize you don't know everything, right? You still got a lot to figure out, but skills are developed over long periods of time.

You can have instant fame, but you can't have instant success. You can be famous really quick, but you can't have success quickly because plants take time to grow. That's why Ecclesiastes and all of you know this scripture, there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven. A time to plant and a time to harvest, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. There's a time for everything.

There's a time to plant and you're probably in a season of planting right now. Our church is in a season of planting right now. We've been in a season of planting for quite a few years and we've put a lot of seeds out there. God, and you need to expect in faith. I expect in faith.

That's why I'm like believing this Easter. I'm spending a lot of money to put a tent outside because we're going to put that, we're going to, we're going to fit a few hundred people under that tent and you guys are going to be a part of that. You're going to start seeding. You're going to start going out in your neighborhoods. You're going to start talking to people about Jesus Christ and you're going to invite them to church.

And guess what? We're going to see a lot of people come to Jesus Christ through our church and our ministry because we're seeding. We're seeding. We're seeding and we're planting. It doesn't happen overnight, but man, it's growing, although we can't see it.

Number seven, I always harvest more than I plant. So it takes time, but the harvest will come in. Again, you plant a peach seed, what do you get? A peach tree with lots of peaches with lots of seeds in it. And those seeds, they come back in hundreds.

And it works both ways. You, you, same thing. You, you harvest, you, you sow anger. You harvest a lot of anger, a lot of angry people, right? If you're bitter and you're bitter to others and you give out bitterness, they're going to come back to you.

It's going to be five, tenfold, right? Same thing with, with spiritual things and with God things. You, if you plant those good seeds, if you plant those seeds of love, if you plant those seeds of grace, you, you, you're going to get lots back. In fact, Mark says it like this, and some seed fell on ground, on good ground. That's, that's the, that's the good ground and grew and made a hundred times more.

Some versions say 30, 60, a hundred times. Depends on what kind of ground you're, you're, you're planting in. So if you develop integrity, if you do what you say you're going to do, if you, if you develop generosity, if you have a love for giving and, and, uh, if you develop humility and, and forgiveness and grace, you're going to get that back. It's going to be beautiful. God's going to honor that.

And he's going to bless you and give that back like that spring rain that falls over you. He's going to give you that back. Number eight, I can increase my harvest by planting more seed. Okay. So you're going to get more back.

So what do you do with the seed? Do you pocket it? Walk on? Guess what? You can't take it to heaven with you.

Right? Heaven's prepared for you. You got everything you need there. So what are you going to do with that seed? What do we do?

We put it back in the harvest. We put it back in the ground. We put it back. We start seeding again. It's called the law of proportion.

And, and, and, uh, you want to be financially blessed? I give more. If I want to love, be loved more, I love more. Right? If I want to be respected, what do I do?

I respect people. I respect people. I, I respect more. So, whoever sows sparingly, as 2 Corinthians 9, 6 says, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. So if you sow sparingly, like you can sow, but if you're doing it like with this, I'm just holding back, you know, only me and God know, and God's not going to strike me dead, you know, so I'm just going to do this, and He will allow you to do it, right?

So if you sow sparingly, you reap sparingly, whoever sows generously will reap generously, right? If you sow generously, you'll get a return of generosity. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly and under compulsion, so He's kind of pointing back to the sparingly thing there, because it's in your heart. Nobody knows what, I can't see how your heart works. God can though, and He sees, if you're being stingy, you're going to have a stingy life, right?

But if you reap, if you sow generously, you reap generously. And here's what it says, for God loves a cheerful giver. He loves, hilarious is the original language there. It means hilarious. Like it's such a joy, it makes you laugh, it's so wonderful.

You know, when you get that laugh in your spirit, doesn't it make you feel good? That's what God's talking about here, a cheerful giver, that I want to give. I'm not forced to give, and I'm going to give generously. I love how the message says it, the world of the generous gets larger and larger, and the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller. If you want a really small world, then just hold on to what you have, and that's all you'll be.

But if you want to make a difference in this world, if you're somebody who really wants to, and I don't know anybody here that says, I just want to be a loser and I don't want to do anything. I just want to be unsuccessful. Losers may be a strong word, but I just want to be unsuccessful. Things just come out of my mouth, guys, yeah. If I want to be, nobody says I don't want to be successful.

I just, you know, I don't want to make a difference. I just want to kind of, you know, just exist. Nobody just wants to exist. You guys want to live life to the full, right? People want to live life to the full, right?

What do we do? We don't, we're not stingy. We live a larger world. Number nine, I should always be planting good seed. I should always be planting.

And I say good seed, I mean, everybody's planting seed, but I should always be planting. Don't wait for a better time to plant. There will never be a better time than now. I'll wait until I'm retired to be generous. I've heard people say, I'm going to wait till, you know, I can't do it right now, but I'll wait till I retire and I'll be, I'll serve more and I'll give more.

No, it doesn't work that way because here's the deal. One of these days is none of these days. One of these days is none of these days. You will never be able to do anything with that. It's a mentality thing.

You'll, you'll never be, you'll never have, when you retire, you won't have the time. Like busy. That's, that's me and Christina's bad word, right? Right. We, we kind of, we kind of joke about that.

It's a little, little, little joke we have. When somebody says I'm too busy, I'm like too busy. Wow. I think Christina and I even had that talk when she first stepped into the church. She's my assistant.

She's working in the church and she, you know, she, she's incredible. She's done so much in this church and grown so much since she's been here. Thank you. Give her a hand clap. But when she first stepped in, she, she, she, she says, you know what?

I don't know if I'm going to have the time to do this. I don't know. And I, and she said, I'm just too busy. And I said, you're never too busy. Nobody's ever too busy because like tithing, your time, God grants you back your time.

And again, I can point to my wife once again, she doesn't get paid. She shows up every Sunday. On time, on time, she shows up and she's been doing this for the last six years guys. She's been doing this every week. She did kids, she did worship, she shows up almost every week.

She gets a few weeks off now, which is really incredible. And you know what? She doesn't do it because I'm her husband. She does it, because I've told her that she doesn't have to do it. I've even told her, listen, if you want to take a step back, you can take a step back, okay?

You don't have to serve just because you're the pastor's wife, okay? But she does it because she loves God and she wants to honor God and she comes in. See, you never have time, and you're never going to have time if you say you never have time, right? And that's serving, and you got, this is a pivotal season guys. This is a season where the fruit is low and we can pick it and people need to know the Lord.

And we sit on our behinds, not doing anything, because we're selfish and we're stingy, and God says, get out there and plant some seeds. We are always planting seeds. We always plant seeds. Here's what Ecclesiastes says, Those who wait for perfect conditions will never plant seeds, and those who look at every cloud will never reap a harvest. Perfectionism paralyzes potential.

Did you know that? If you're waiting for the perfect time, there's going to be no potential. There's never a better time. Now is the time. Don't wait.

Here's what Ecclesiastes 11 says, Do your planting in the morning and in the evening too, and you never know whether it will all grow well or whether one planting will do better than the other. So are you planting anything? Are you just coasting? What are you planting is the question. That's what you need to ask yourself.

What are you planting now? Start small. It starts with small things, just small things that lead to larger things. Maybe it's a word. Maybe it's a thought.

Maybe it's a habit. I'm not saying completely change your life like that. It's not going to happen overnight because seeds grow in the ground in the dark places, right? So it won't happen overnight, but start now and see what God does with that. Begin today.

Don't wait. Don't wait. Stop waiting for you to have enough time, for you to have enough money. It will never happen if you wait because seeds don't grow on the shelf. Seeds grow in the ground.

Start seeding and see what happens. You can trust God in faith in that. And number 10, my last point, while waiting for my harvest, I must be patient and not give up. I must be patient and not give up. Rick Warren in his book, The Purpose Driven Church, talks about when he planted Saddleback, one of the largest churches in America.

He mentions a bamboo shoot about this big, a type of bamboo that doesn't grow fast. He says, you take the bamboo, you put it in the ground, you begin to water it and fertilize it the first year, doesn't grow. You water it and fertilize it the second year, doesn't grow. You water it and fertilize it the third year, doesn't grow. And over and over and over again, every year until year seven.

And in year seven, you water and fertilize it, it still doesn't grow. And then one day, you wake up in the morning and that bamboo has grown six foot. Just like that. It just happens. And he talks about, and it kind of spoke to me, and it speaks to many people in ministry, and hopefully this speaks to you.

Year seven, he says, so many people who start churches, who begin churches, who begin ministry, they give up before God has had a chance to bless it. And they'll work for six years and end of year seven, and they'll just give up. And you're like, I can't do this anymore. And then somebody else comes in, takes over to ministry, it blows up, and they don't get any credit for it. Because they gave up too soon.

They gave up too soon. So when we seed, it's not going to happen overnight, right? But we are not to give up. We water, we fertilize, and that's where we are. As a church, really, we're watering and we're fertilizing, we're watering and we're fertilizing.

God's got extreme vision. Salt always makes a difference, right? And a little salt goes a very, very long way. And we've had people come and go. We've had people give up.

I've seen people in their personal lives, they give up right before there's a breakthrough. I've seen people in their marriages give up right before there's a breakthrough. I've seen people in their relationships give up right before there's a breakthrough. In their jobs, in their success, almost there, and they just cannot make it because they're giving up. Now, you can't do anything about last year's harvest, okay?

We're coming out of a season where a lot of you probably have lost a lot of things, right? You've lost retirement. You've lost a person. You're grieving. You're going through a time of grief.

Pandemic. Pandemic's done a lot to us as a culture. It's been really hard. But you can start planting today. You can start planting today.

So what are you going to begin to plant this year is the question. And what do you need to continue to water and fertilize this year? What have you been working on that you just need to continue to water and fertilize? Those are two questions you need to ask yourself. Now, going back to this experience of grief, you know, some of you have just been ready to give up because you've gone through this grief.

And I want to end with this. During this year, it's the last couple of years, actually. And we're kind of getting to a regular place now again. It feels good to kind of get life going again. But some of you are still grieving over things that you have lost.

And that's okay. I just want to encourage you. That is okay. That's okay. Because losses that we've experienced take us to new levels in our lives and new levels in our ministries and new levels in our...

It takes us to different seasons, better seasons when we go through. We have to go through the pain sometimes of grief. We have to go through the sorrow. That's why scripture says, as we transition to these new times in life where we go through the hard times, it says this. It tells us to keep planting.

Because I want to tell you, just keep planting. Even when it's hard, even when it's dark, even when it's lonely, keep planting. Psalm 126 says, those who plant in tears will harvest with a shout of joy. Those who plant in tears. You're tearing.

You're hurting. You're broken down. But you're planting. You're still planting. You're still putting it in the ground.

And they weep as they go to plant their seed. But they sing as they return with the harvest. The harvest is coming. It's okay to have tears, but don't give up. It's okay to grieve the loss, but there's so much more coming.

Morning is okay, but morning, it lasted a night. But guess what? Joy comes in the morning. Do you believe that? Joy comes in the morning.

And even in my tears, even in my tears, even when I'm broken, even when I'm crying, and even when I don't know what to expect, I keep planting. I keep planting. Keep putting those seeds in the ground. And then the other question is this. What personal plowing and weeding do I need to do before planting?

Some of you got some weeds in your garden that you need to get out, right? God can't use you until you start. I remember when I was first called to ministry about a month into that calling, just trying to figure out, you know, what God was calling me to. I walked into a Sunday night service in my home church. And I remember going to the front with tears in my eyes and I and I lay before I told the Lord I give it all to you I give everything to you and I looked at the elders the elders were gathered around me and the deacons and different ones were gathered around me they were laying hands on me and they they said and I just looked at him I said I can't I can't do what God's called me to do unless I get some weeding out of my garden I got some things that that I've got to break free.

of before I can even begin to do that and we prayed and they encouraged me and and and even today there's still times where I have to go to the Lord and say God Lord he revealed stuff to me this past year he revealed some things to me you've got to get rid of that if you're gonna if I'm gonna take you to the next level so I God is constantly weeding us it's a habit it's an attitude maybe it's maybe it's some kind of poison that's in your life maybe it's a person maybe it's a place maybe it's an idol that you've placed in your life that's there what do you need to get rid of here's what Jeremiah 4 3 says your hearts have become hard like an unplowed field where weeds have taken over so plow up the hard ground of your hearts do not waste good seed by planting among weeds so before I can plant the seed I got I got to take out the weeds I got to take out the weeds I got to choke out I got to get the weeds they're gonna choke out the seeds right maybe for you that's that's returning to Christ today maybe that online that's that's you you got to return to Christ today that maybe it's time to get back right with God maybe it's time to return to Christ to rededicate your life to Christ for some of you it might just be I need my first step I just got to know God I just need to know Jesus I want what I get what you're saying pastor it makes a lot of sense but I haven't taken the first step well let me give you good news this is what good news is about I'm gonna I'm gonna here's the good news Jesus loves you and he wants to give you everything you just got to surrender yourself give yourself to him surrender yourself because some things have to die you have to die to yourself in order to live in Christ and he has everything available for you today and if you want that opportunity today with all heads bowed no eyes closed I just want to pray this with you today and I want every level of Christian today to look at their hearts right now to ask God to help them see where they are maybe you're somebody who needs to rededicate your life maybe you're somebody who just needs to get some things fixed in your life so God can carry you to the next level and some of you are making that first step today so let's just pray this pray this pray this in your heart pray this in your heart pray it out loud if you want to Jesus I believe you have so much more for my life but I'm surrendering my life today because I realize that unless I die I can't truly live so I surrender myself to you Jesus the one who died and gave his life for me so that I can know life and life eternally so today Lord I give my life to you today Lord I give my heart to you today Lord pour the blood of Jesus Christ over me right now God I surrender my life to you come into my heart make me a new person in Jesus name