Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our
Speaker 2: podcast and I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1: Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Speaker 2: Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving
Speaker 2: in your life.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message, Mark four twenty six.
Speaker 2: He also said, this is what the Kingdom of God
Speaker 2: is like a man scattered seed on the ground night
Speaker 2: and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed
Speaker 2: sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.
Speaker 1: All by itself.
Speaker 2: The soil produces grain, first the stalk, then the head,
Speaker 2: then the full kernel in the head. God knows the
Speaker 2: order in which things need to happen in our lives,
Speaker 2: and trusting him is in one sense, just allowing him
Speaker 2: to do not only what he wants to do, but
Speaker 2: when he wants to do it. Touch somebody say there's
Speaker 2: an order to this. That's what we preached about last
Speaker 2: week from Mark three, and we said that when you
Speaker 2: get things out of.
Speaker 1: Order, they stop working.
Speaker 2: So that's why spending your money before you tithe is
Speaker 2: a bad idea, because it's out of.
Speaker 1: Order too early, too soon.
Speaker 2: That's why sex before marriage is a dangerous proposition. Too much,
Speaker 2: too soon. Now he doesn't value you. Instead, he objectifies you.
Speaker 2: And there's an order to things. There's an order to things.
Speaker 1: Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise.
Speaker 2: My time with God goes a lot better if I
Speaker 2: start with thank you for what you've already done. I
Speaker 2: got some things I need, I've got some unresolved issues
Speaker 2: that I.
Speaker 1: Want to bring before you.
Speaker 2: But first of all, God, I just want to thank
Speaker 2: you because somebody's lying on a ventilator this morning, and
Speaker 2: I have breath in my body, and you said, let
Speaker 2: everything that has breadth.
Speaker 1: Praise the Lord, and I got breath to praise you with.
Speaker 2: So God, right now, in spite of how I feel
Speaker 2: on what I'm going through, I just want to give
Speaker 2: you about sixteen seconds of praise. There's an order, there's
Speaker 2: an order, and then comes the result as soon verse
Speaker 2: twenty nine. As the grain is ripe, he puts the
Speaker 2: sickle to it, and some of us put the sickle
Speaker 2: to stuff too soon before it has the chance to
Speaker 2: take root. And we spend money to impress people, and
Speaker 2: because we don't know when to use what God has
Speaker 2: given us, we end up ruining the very provision anyway.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: I'm just reading scriptures, has nothing to do with my sermon.
Speaker 2: But I'll be honest with you. When I walked around
Speaker 2: the corner, Valentine was singing like they love Jesus, and
Speaker 2: I just got excited and the Holy Spirit just kicked
Speaker 2: me into gear. So as soon as the grain is right,
Speaker 2: he puts the sickle to it because the harvest has come.
Speaker 2: But the real focus of this message is going to
Speaker 2: be verse twenty seven B and twenty eight A. It
Speaker 2: says the seed sprouts and grows night and day, whether
Speaker 2: he sleeps or gets up. The seed sprouts and grows,
Speaker 2: though he does not know how, and that's the key phrase.
Speaker 1: He does not know how.
Speaker 2: And then it says, all by itself, the soil produces grain.
Speaker 2: And so to me, that made me think about grace,
Speaker 2: and that made me think about God's sovereignty, and that
Speaker 2: made me wonder, if I'm staying up stressing about stuff,
Speaker 2: if I would get out of my own way and
Speaker 2: let God deal with it the way that he knows
Speaker 2: how to deal with things, I would be so much
Speaker 2: better off, you know. So what I came to tell
Speaker 2: you today. This is my sermon. Title is let the
Speaker 2: dirt do its work. You may be seated. Let's work
Speaker 2: on the scripture for a moment. I did preach from
Speaker 2: this passage two years ago, and at.
Speaker 1: That time I was.
Speaker 2: Taken by the temporal implications of this text and the
Speaker 2: timing of God. I believe the title I gave that
Speaker 2: little message was called the Seed is on schedule, and
Speaker 2: I was using it to illustrate how things in our
Speaker 2: life in some ways show up. Like the wise teacher
Speaker 2: said that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
Speaker 2: That's what I was trying to say two years ago.
Speaker 2: And in the last two years, either this text has
Speaker 2: gotten better.
Speaker 1: I'm being sarcastic.
Speaker 2: The text didn't change, but God has opened my eyes
Speaker 2: to see it in a little different way. And since
Speaker 2: we been going through Mark's Gospel very slowly at a
Speaker 2: leisurely stroll, to talk about savage Jesus, and all I
Speaker 2: keep hearing from people as I see you out and
Speaker 2: about is don't stop preaching savage Jesus. This series, just
Speaker 2: keep keep it going until the rapture. And I don't
Speaker 2: know about that, but I thought we should at least
Speaker 2: take one parable and Mark gives us so much about
Speaker 2: the context of Jesus ministry, but we also want to
Speaker 2: take a moment now and pause and look at some
Speaker 2: of the content of his ministry, and we see that
Speaker 2: his teaching is creating opposition at the same time that
Speaker 2: it is making an impact.
Speaker 1: By the way, that's always the case. Everything that makes
Speaker 1: impact creates opposition.
Speaker 2: You know that, right if the devil touch somebody say,
Speaker 2: if the devil is in messing with you, he doesn't
Speaker 2: consider you a threat. So we've seen now five different
Speaker 2: examples of controversy in the ministry of Jesus, which makes
Speaker 2: me want to go back and have a conversation again.
Speaker 2: One pastor, I said, what's your goal in ministry?
Speaker 1: He said, my goal is that on the Wikipedia page.
Speaker 2: And he didn't have a Wikipedia page, but he said,
Speaker 2: if I have a Wikipedia page, this is already weird
Speaker 2: hypothetical Wikipedia page.
Speaker 1: Is your goal for ministry?
Speaker 2: He said, I hope there's no controversy section. He said
Speaker 2: that was his main goal in ministry. By that standard,
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ was the ultimate ministry failure.
Speaker 1: Why are you looking shocked? What do you think the
Speaker 1: cross was? You think it was jewelry.
Speaker 2: You think, you think, you think the cross was a
Speaker 2: celebratory moment. The Roman Empire used that tool to torture
Speaker 2: people who represented a threat. And everywhere Jesus went people
Speaker 2: were threatened. The Pharisees, the teachers of the law, they
Speaker 2: were threatened by Jesus. He was upsetting their entire system.
Speaker 2: Were you here last week? Their entire system was being
Speaker 2: overturned by.
Speaker 1: The things he was speaking and the things he was doing.
Speaker 2: Not only that, but the demons were threatened by Jesus
Speaker 2: every time he got in the presence of an impure
Speaker 2: spirit and started shrieking and convulsing and begging and falling.
Speaker 1: Down at his feet.
Speaker 2: Is a funny thing, because the demons knew better who
Speaker 2: Jesus was than the teachers of the law did. Isn't
Speaker 2: that crazy? The demons saw Jesus and they fell down
Speaker 2: at his feet. The teachers of the law saw Jesus
Speaker 2: and they crossed their arms to judge him. Sometimes we
Speaker 2: should be more like the demons than we should be
Speaker 2: like the religious people. At least the demons knew this
Speaker 2: guy's in charge. At least the demons knew he has
Speaker 2: all power. At least the demons knew. He's not ordinary,
Speaker 2: he's not average, he's not common.
Speaker 1: This is the son of God.
Speaker 2: I wonder do we really worship him today? I wonder
Speaker 2: do we really regard him as the supreme authority in
Speaker 2: our lives?
Speaker 1: Or is he just an accessory. This is what we've
Speaker 1: been studying, and.
Speaker 2: It all fits within the context all of the controversy
Speaker 2: and all of the compassion of Jesus. They were both
Speaker 2: growing together. Both grow together, the wheat and the terrorist.
Speaker 2: That's when parable Jesus used, it's not our parable today,
Speaker 2: but he was talking about the wheat grows and right
Speaker 2: beside it all the weeds grow that want to choke
Speaker 2: out the wheat. And what we tend to want to
Speaker 2: do that is reflected in that parable in Matthew thirteen
Speaker 2: is to separate the weeds from the wheat. But Jesus said,
Speaker 2: both grow together. They have to. It's an eschatological principle
Speaker 2: that he's using to talk about the harvest at the
Speaker 2: end of the age, but it also has practical implications
Speaker 2: in our lives that both grow together. As God is
Speaker 2: drawing you into a deeper relationship and a more consistent
Speaker 2: communion with him, there will also be a more consistent
Speaker 2: sense of conflict to accompany the communion, because both grow together.
Speaker 2: Don't be confused about it, and don't try to separate
Speaker 2: what you think is the good stuff from what you
Speaker 2: think is the bad stuff, because God uses both in
Speaker 2: our life. The tears he uses for our humility so
Speaker 2: that we will trust him, and the weed he uses
Speaker 2: for our sustenance so that He can sustain us and
Speaker 2: bless us, and both grow together. Now, with that context established,
Speaker 2: we have a parable Jesus taught in parables. Mark shares
Speaker 2: here several of them. Remember he's not compiling these in
Speaker 2: the order that they happen. He's giving us a He's
Speaker 2: giving us a how would I say it, a curated
Speaker 2: account of the ministry of Jesus. And he's building for
Speaker 2: us what he believes to be an accurate picture of
Speaker 2: the purpose of the ministry of Jesus.
Speaker 1: And now Jesus is teaching us about.
Speaker 2: The nature of the Kingdom of God and our faith.
Speaker 2: Maybe you've heard the parable of the different types of
Speaker 2: soil that he starts with in Mark chapter four. He's
Speaker 2: getting into this idea that there is always seed going forth.
Speaker 2: God is always speaking to you. Stop asking God to
Speaker 2: speak to you and start listening. It's the weirdest thing
Speaker 2: we pray.
Speaker 1: God, speak to me, Speak to me, Speak to me,
Speaker 1: Speak to me, Speak to me. If you'd shut up,
Speaker 1: you'd hear that.
Speaker 2: I already am. So the seed's always going forth. But
Speaker 2: while my Bible calls it the parable of the sower,
Speaker 2: it's really the parable of the soils. It's really about
Speaker 2: our hearts. The soil is our soul, our mind, our will,
Speaker 2: and our emotions. And in this passage he shares with
Speaker 2: us how there are some seeds that fall on the path,
Speaker 2: and the birds come and snatch them up. How many
Speaker 2: of you have some seed snatchers in your life? Joy
Speaker 2: Joy thieves, people who want to ruin your day.
Speaker 1: And it's not nine thirty yet, and here they come.
Speaker 2: How many you have some seed snatching apps on your phone?
Speaker 2: You know that one with the bird. What's it called twitter?
Speaker 2: Jesus said? Jesus said, the birds of the air will
Speaker 2: snatch the seed and grab your attention, so that you
Speaker 2: don't act on what you heard, but you forget what
Speaker 2: you heard. Because a lot of us have a stash
Speaker 2: of seed.
Speaker 1: That we've never put in the ground.
Speaker 2: We've gotten to be professional seed collectors who know how
Speaker 2: to highlight our Bibles and fill notebooks with information. But
Speaker 2: without application, without soili, the seed only represents unused potential.
Speaker 1: And to me, that's a sad thing.
Speaker 2: Woldn't be sad for God to show you in heaven
Speaker 2: how much seed you sat on while you were here
Speaker 2: on earth. Do not merely listen to the word. Instead,
Speaker 2: do what it says. You are not blessed by the
Speaker 2: word you hear, but the word that you do a
Speaker 2: lot of times. If you think we need to know more,
Speaker 2: I found out that I already know enough. Let me
Speaker 2: give a few examples. I know not to talk bad
Speaker 2: about people. If I would just do that, I think
Speaker 2: I'd be working seventy hours a week.
Speaker 1: Just that that alone.
Speaker 2: I know that I'm supposed to consider others as more
Speaker 2: important than myself.
Speaker 1: I know that, and you know that.
Speaker 2: Touch somebody say you know this, and if you know
Speaker 2: how to say man after it, you could say man
Speaker 2: after But if you.
Speaker 1: Don't know how, don't try to be embarrassing. You know this.
Speaker 1: You know this.
Speaker 2: In fact, look back at him one more time. I
Speaker 2: need your help, because everybody looks a little bit resistant
Speaker 2: to this point. We always want to know more. You know,
Speaker 2: I want to grow spiritually. Look back at him and say,
Speaker 2: if you would do what you knew, you would grow
Speaker 2: spiritual growth. It's always been a tricky concept to me
Speaker 2: because I thought spiritual growth required more knowledge. And I
Speaker 2: don't have many regrets in life, but I do have
Speaker 2: a few. One thing I regret I wish I would
Speaker 2: have written a parenting book before I.
Speaker 1: Had my kids.
Speaker 2: It's just something I think about often. How some my
Speaker 2: parenting book would have been if I had written it
Speaker 2: before parenting, because the time that I knew the most
Speaker 2: about parenting.
Speaker 1: You know what, I wish the same thing.
Speaker 2: Here's another recred I wish I would have written a
Speaker 2: book about being a pastor before I started this church.
Speaker 2: It would have been so profound. It would have had
Speaker 2: diagrams and informational concepts.
Speaker 1: It would have been it would have been seven hundred and.
Speaker 2: Seventy three pages of how to be a pastor? And
Speaker 2: then you showed up and screwed up all my theories
Speaker 2: about how to be a pastor. People messed up my
Speaker 2: ideas about how to be a pastor.
Speaker 1: What's up with that? Now? It would just be a pamphlet.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't even it would just be illustrated.
Speaker 2: It would only have the whole book would be prayer,
Speaker 2: you know, the emoji with the prayer hands. That would
Speaker 2: be the whole How to be a parent, how to
Speaker 2: be a pastor?
Speaker 1: But I knew so much.
Speaker 2: You notice, those are the people who give the most advice,
Speaker 2: those with the least experience. When I went down, I
Speaker 2: tell you what I would do if it were me.
Speaker 2: And I know, I mean, I'm not judging. I'm just saying, now, okay,
Speaker 2: so three things.
Speaker 1: It's right here in the text. I know you think
Speaker 1: that I'm confuser loss. It's as that the farmer, this
Speaker 1: is crazy.
Speaker 2: The farmer who puts the seed in the ground, not
Speaker 2: the seed on the shelf, but the seed in the soil.
Speaker 1: He let's look at the verse on the screen again, he.
Speaker 2: Experiences the maturation of that seed, though he does not
Speaker 2: know how.
Speaker 1: What kind of farmer is this?
Speaker 2: If you don't know how the seed grows, you could
Speaker 2: at least google it.
Speaker 1: There you would.
Speaker 2: Find that the seed needs what light or the correct
Speaker 2: temperatures and water. Yeah, and then it needs to be
Speaker 2: planted in the right place. I can tell you exactly
Speaker 2: how the seed grows. That's exactly how it grows. I
Speaker 2: can explain that to you. And so if the scripture
Speaker 2: says this parable, which is always used to get us
Speaker 2: beneath the surface to the deeper meaning, if the parable
Speaker 2: is included in Jesus' illustration of what the Kingdom of
Speaker 2: God is like, he said, this is what the Kingdom
Speaker 2: is like, and now we're expecting something spectacular. Because the
Speaker 2: Kingdom of God is a new concept, Jesus is the
Speaker 2: first one to use this term. And since they are
Speaker 2: not familiar with this particular concept, Jesus is giving them
Speaker 2: an earthly illustration.
Speaker 1: Yet he does not talk about the.
Speaker 2: Kingdom of God being like Wakanda. He does not talk
Speaker 2: about the Kingdom of God being like a spaceship.
Speaker 1: He does not talk about the Kingdom of.
Speaker 2: God being like a rocket. Instead, he says, and this
Speaker 2: must have been anti climactic for those who gathered to
Speaker 2: hear his message on this day, the Kingdom is like
Speaker 2: a seed.
Speaker 1: And on this alone, we understand that often what.
Speaker 2: God does in our life will feel insignificant, and then
Speaker 2: it will go into the soil where it will be invisible.
Speaker 2: And that a lot of times when God is working
Speaker 2: in our lives in the greatest ways. We won't even
Speaker 2: know how He's working. We will be ignorant. That's three eyes.
Speaker 2: It makes an outline. Write it down.
Speaker 1: Three things about the Kingdom of God.
Speaker 2: It often sees, means insignificant, It often appears invisible.
Speaker 1: And often you feel ignorant. So the greatest proof that
Speaker 1: you are growing in your relationship with.
Speaker 2: God is sometimes the fact that you don't feel like you.
Speaker 1: Are growing in your relationship with God.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry for everyone who always needs a goose bump
Speaker 2: to feel.
Speaker 1: Like God is with you.
Speaker 2: But sometimes the greatest growth in your life is not
Speaker 2: going to be on the surface of your emotions, your feelings,
Speaker 2: or your senses. Sometimes the deeper work that God will
Speaker 2: do is much greater than the highest work.
Speaker 1: That God will do.
Speaker 2: For what is the building without the foundation? Jesus said,
Speaker 2: the Kingdom is like this is.
Speaker 1: Something so small, seemingly.
Speaker 2: So insignificant, and it goes through stages that are so invisible,
Speaker 2: and a lot of the times you will feel so ignorant.
Speaker 2: Like the farmer who puts the seed in the ground
Speaker 2: and doesn't know when he'll see it again. Sure he
Speaker 2: can water it, Sure he can plow the ground. Surely
Speaker 2: we have a part to play in our relationship with God.
Speaker 2: But there is this other element of faith that I
Speaker 2: want to talk about today that I don't hear about enough,
Speaker 2: and I'm hungry to hear about it because I see
Speaker 2: a lot of Christians listening to cute sermons, and we're
Speaker 2: telling you to do things that sound really big, to
Speaker 2: forgive people and to be free of addiction. But I
Speaker 2: hear the response from the people when the pulpit is
Speaker 2: echoing forth these lofty ideals, and the people are sitting
Speaker 2: in the peple saying.
Speaker 1: How.
Speaker 2: You're telling me what, but you're not telling me how.
Speaker 2: I don't know how. I don't know how to read
Speaker 2: my Bible.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to pray for over.
Speaker 2: Thirteen seconds without thinking about my need for cereal at
Speaker 2: the grocery store. I don't somebody try.
Speaker 1: It, say, I don't know how.
Speaker 2: That's the most spiritual thing you've said all week. Who
Speaker 2: did God pick to be the disciples of Jesus? Religious
Speaker 2: professionals with academic no how he picked the people? Who
Speaker 2: did God pick to carry his son? What's the first
Speaker 2: thing Mary said? When the Angel said the one born
Speaker 2: of you is the Holy One of God?
Speaker 1: What exactly how?
Speaker 2: What's the first thing that the disciple said when Jesus said,
Speaker 2: feed these big crowds, even though you didn't pack of lunch.
Speaker 2: What's the first thing they said that is the starting
Speaker 2: place of spiritual growth?
Speaker 1: To admit? I sorry I'm screaming, but.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it screams inside of me when God calls.
Speaker 1: Me to do something. But I don't know how. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know how. I don't know how to
Speaker 1: raise these kids.
Speaker 2: I don't know how I did before I had them, but.
Speaker 1: Now they're here, and I don't know how. I read
Speaker 1: the book, the baby book. It told me that if you.
Speaker 2: Swaddle the child, but I found out my firstborn child
Speaker 2: was unswaddleable.
Speaker 1: I don't know how.
Speaker 2: I hear you preaching these great sermons.
Speaker 1: Keep your eyes on Jesus, and don't look at the wind,
Speaker 1: and don't look at the waves. But how do I
Speaker 1: look at something that's invisible.
Speaker 2: I hear what you're saying, and I want what you God,
Speaker 2: But I don't know how.
Speaker 1: How many don't know how?
Speaker 2: Just to see how I'm preaching to and who I
Speaker 2: can leave alone?
Speaker 1: I don't know how.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to forgive somebody, but then make
Speaker 2: sure that I keep an appropriate distance so that they
Speaker 2: don't continue to violate me.
Speaker 1: I don't know how.
Speaker 2: I don't know. And here's a farmer doesn't know how
Speaker 2: to make a seed grow, and Jesus says, is like that.
Speaker 2: Growth is like that. There's a part that you will play,
Speaker 2: and you will know what to do.
Speaker 1: You sow, you water, you plow, but you don't have
Speaker 1: to know how.
Speaker 2: This is the dirty little secret of the Kingdom that
Speaker 2: they don't want me to tell you.
Speaker 1: They want you to.
Speaker 2: Think that God chooses and uses and blesses people who
Speaker 2: are experts and who are the epitome of perfection. But
Speaker 2: I want to tell you who God's looking for. Fishermen
Speaker 2: like Peter, prostitutes like Rahab, people who don't know how.
Speaker 2: That's what God is looking for, humble people. Blessed are
Speaker 2: those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, not those who
Speaker 2: are so full of their own wisdom that they cannot
Speaker 2: receive the wisdom of God.
Speaker 1: So if you.
Speaker 2: Came here today with a I don't know how hard
Speaker 2: God can feel what you will empty before him. I
Speaker 2: don't have to know how. I don't have to know
Speaker 2: how it works. If I did, I'd still be at
Speaker 2: the house because I drove my Maxima here and I
Speaker 2: have no idea how that that button told my tires
Speaker 2: to spend. I have a little bit of a concept,
Speaker 2: but not much. I found out something about my car
Speaker 2: that I found.
Speaker 1: Out about God.
Speaker 2: I found out I don't have to understand it. See
Speaker 2: it got me from here to there, and from there
Speaker 2: to here and here. I am preaching, but honestly, I
Speaker 2: don't know how. I have an iPad. I put my
Speaker 2: notes on my iPad. I turn on my iPad, the
Speaker 2: notes appear on my iPad.
Speaker 1: I preach to you. I understand what button to push.
Speaker 2: I push it. I know what letters to type. I
Speaker 2: typed them. But as to how the words appeared on
Speaker 2: the iPad, I don't know how. It didn't stop me
Speaker 2: from preaching, it didn't stop it from working.
Speaker 1: There may be somebody.
Speaker 2: Here today who is in a situation where you.
Speaker 1: Don't know how. God.
Speaker 2: I'm not smart enough. God, I wasn't trained for this. God,
Speaker 2: I've never been this way before. God, this is new
Speaker 2: to me. God, I feel like a rookie. God I've
Speaker 2: never God said from heaven, you don't have to know
Speaker 2: how when you.
Speaker 1: Know who, an't twitting? Come on five.
Speaker 2: Five seconds, four seconds, yes, three seconds, two seconds. Now,
Speaker 2: let's prace him like we know who he is. He's
Speaker 2: the lord of the harvest. To see this mind what the.
Speaker 3: Harvest this is? And I don't have to know. I
Speaker 3: just gotta sew.
Speaker 1: Don't let what you don't know keep you from sewing.
Speaker 2: The farmer didn't know how it was gonna happen, but
Speaker 2: he knew what to do.
Speaker 1: I gotta keep sewing.
Speaker 2: I gotta keep praying, I gotta keep believing.
Speaker 1: I gotta stay in this house. I gotta be present.
Speaker 1: I gotta show up. All I gotta do is sow.
Speaker 2: Find twelve disciples and tell him you don't have to
Speaker 2: know how.
Speaker 1: You don't have to know how. You don't have to
Speaker 1: know how.
Speaker 2: I will make you fishures of men. All I need
Speaker 2: is your boked. All I need is your will, All
Speaker 2: I need is your want to. All I need is
Speaker 2: your surrender. All I need is your obedience. But you
Speaker 2: stop sewing because you didn't know how. You don't have
Speaker 2: to know how. Let's get it in our spirits, say
Speaker 2: I don't have to know how. I could be like
Speaker 2: Abraham who set out from Erth without knowing where he
Speaker 2: was going. He didn't have to know how because he knows.
Speaker 2: He knows.
Speaker 1: Are you getting a lesson?
Speaker 2: It's not just one text, it's the principle of this
Speaker 2: parable that is illustrated.
Speaker 1: The Kingdom of God is like a man who sowed,
Speaker 1: he did so.
Speaker 4: Notice there there there is a part that you play.
Speaker 4: But once you do what you know, there is a
Speaker 4: poet that you reach where you can't make it rain,
Speaker 4: and you can't control the rate of growth of the sea.
Speaker 4: And there are so many people who will hear this
Speaker 4: message online and in our campuses, who are waiting to
Speaker 4: know before you.
Speaker 1: Sow, and it's out of order.
Speaker 2: As much as I want to preach theologically right now,
Speaker 2: I just want to minister to you personally.
Speaker 1: Let the dirt do its work.
Speaker 2: Because the greatest growth happened not when the farmer was
Speaker 2: doing his part, but when the dirt was doing its part.
Speaker 2: There's a cooperation that happens in each of our lives.
Speaker 2: That's between the things we can control. I can plow,
Speaker 2: I can water, and.
Speaker 1: I can sew.
Speaker 2: I can speak words of encouragement, I can speak words
Speaker 2: of life. I can invest my resources into the Kingdom
Speaker 2: of God. I can do all of that, but the
Speaker 2: part that produces the fruit is not attributed to the
Speaker 2: farmer and the passage. And I think we fall into
Speaker 2: an extreme where we either think it's all about what
Speaker 2: we know or it's all about what God does. In
Speaker 2: the passage, the farmer scatters, but the soil produces. And
Speaker 2: the dirty little secret, if I can use that phrase
Speaker 2: of the Kingdom of God that Jesus is comparing to
Speaker 2: a seed, is that your destiny will be revealed in
Speaker 2: the What do I mean, the disappointment, the insecurity, the rejection,
Speaker 2: and the trouble.
Speaker 1: Check it out.
Speaker 2: It spells dirt, the disappointment, the insecurity, the rejection, and
Speaker 2: the trouble.
Speaker 1: Now, this will be an excellent lesson.
Speaker 2: On its own because it illustrates the principles that will
Speaker 2: apply to any area of our life. And right here
Speaker 2: we could tell you to make lemonade out of limits.
Speaker 2: And right here we could tell you it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: how many times you fall down, you know, get knocked
Speaker 2: down nine, get up ten. We could say anything we
Speaker 2: want right here, and the principle would be powerful.
Speaker 1: But this is not a principle this is a parable, and.
Speaker 2: A parable is a picture that appears simple on the
Speaker 2: surface but carries a deeper meaning. When I read the
Speaker 2: passage two years ago, I thought that the far was
Speaker 2: Jesus and the seed was the word of God.
Speaker 1: The problem with this interpretation of.
Speaker 2: The parable, upon further reflection and study, is that Jesus
Speaker 2: can't be the farmer because the farmer doesn't know how
Speaker 2: Jesus is the wisdom of God. So to compare Jesus
Speaker 2: to the farmer who scatters the seed is to is
Speaker 2: to miss the parable that is beneath the principle. The
Speaker 2: principle is this, don't let what you don't know stop
Speaker 2: you from sewing. But the parable, the parable, the picture
Speaker 2: that Jesus is painting is of something that hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 1: Everyone around him, in his.
Speaker 2: Inner circle, which he has just selected in Mark chapter three,
Speaker 2: everyone around him is trying their best to keep him
Speaker 2: from going to the cross. For him to go to
Speaker 2: the cross means the death of the movement that he
Speaker 2: came to initiate.
Speaker 1: In their eyes. And so when he stood.
Speaker 2: Before the judges, both the Jewish Sanhedrin and the Roman
Speaker 2: government prelates, he was silent as a sheep before the sears.
Speaker 2: Everything in those disciples wanted to see Jesus come down
Speaker 2: from the cross to avoid being buried in the grave.
Speaker 2: But Jesus stood before Pilot and he allowed those accusations
Speaker 2: to be heaped on him although he was innocent, because.
Speaker 1: He knew that the dirt had a purpose to fulfill.
Speaker 2: And so as he stood before those who accused him
Speaker 2: condemned him and sentenced him to die.
Speaker 1: He could have stopped it, and he could.
Speaker 2: Have called for legions of angels to come and rescue
Speaker 2: him from the rejection.
Speaker 1: But this is what he came for.
Speaker 2: So he said, with his silence something that is illustrated
Speaker 2: in the parable. He said, let the dirt do its work,
Speaker 2: because if they accuse me, then my father in Heaven
Speaker 2: doesn't have.
Speaker 1: To accuse you.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to take your accusations and your shame. I,
Speaker 2: the innocent, am going to absorb your punishment so that you,
Speaker 2: the guilty, can go free.
Speaker 1: So when they heaped.
Speaker 2: Their accusations on him, he took it. When he died
Speaker 2: on the cross and they took him down and buried
Speaker 2: him in the grave, he did not resist the burial. Instead,
Speaker 2: he stayed dead three days to let the dirt do
Speaker 2: its work. Now, we thought we were attending a funeral,
Speaker 2: but really what it was was an agricultural lesson. Jesus
Speaker 2: was not buried on Friday, he was planted. Now, because
Speaker 2: he was planted on Friday, there is the expectation of harvest.
Speaker 2: He is the first born among many brethren. So when
Speaker 2: he lay in the grave, it wasn't over. It was
Speaker 2: just beginning. I came to declare today to everybody who's
Speaker 2: been going through a season of failure or depression, or
Speaker 2: uncertainty or rejection or disappointment, let the dirt do its work.
Speaker 2: Don't fight it, don't run from it, and don't pluck.
Speaker 1: Up the sea because you don't like the season. Let
Speaker 1: the dirt do its work.
Speaker 2: This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: This is what the Kingdom of God is life. There's
Speaker 1: nothing man can do to you that God cannot use
Speaker 1: for his good. And I believe that. I believe that all.
Speaker 2: Things work together for the good of him that love
Speaker 2: the Lord and are called according to his purpose.
Speaker 5: But I I don't always know how.
Speaker 1: But I don't have to know how, because I know who.
Speaker 2: The emphasis on Romans eight twenty eight isn't on things.
Speaker 2: All things work together for the good. The emphasis is
Speaker 2: not on good because it might not feel good, and
Speaker 2: I might not know how it's good while I'm in it.
Speaker 2: The emphasis of Romans eight twenty eight is that I'm
Speaker 2: called that I love God, and I'm called according to
Speaker 2: his purpose. So his purpose is the promise that lets
Speaker 2: me know that it seems insignificant, that to me it's invisible,
Speaker 2: and I don't know how, but I know.
Speaker 1: Everybody who wants to praise God for it.
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna give you thirty seconds to do what
Speaker 2: you need to do. Maybe your neighbor doesn't want this word.
Speaker 2: Maybe they want to let a bird snatch it or
Speaker 2: a thorn choker. But there are some people here who
Speaker 2: have been in the ground for a little while. And
Speaker 2: I promise Cyris to every person.
Speaker 1: Who's been in a depression.
Speaker 2: You've been in a funk, You've been in a failure.
Speaker 1: The devil sent it was in.
Speaker 3: But surday came.
Speaker 2: Where you at Matthews, where you at Valentine, where you
Speaker 2: at you see.
Speaker 1: You know what's crazy.
Speaker 2: I'm calling out all these campuses, and somehow they see
Speaker 2: me on their screens and I don't.
Speaker 1: Know how, but I don't have to know how. And
Speaker 1: you know what. Somehow I'm preaching this word and.
Speaker 2: It's getting in your heart, and God's gonna use it,
Speaker 2: and it won't return forid, but it will accomplish what
Speaker 2: God sent it to do.
Speaker 1: But His ways are higher than my ways, and his
Speaker 1: thoughts been my thoughts. I don't have to know. I
Speaker 1: just have to sew. I just have to go. I
Speaker 1: don't have to know.
Speaker 5: I don't know how I'm gonna make it, but I
Speaker 5: don't have to know how. I don't know who God's
Speaker 5: gonna use to get me through this, but I don't
Speaker 5: have to know how.
Speaker 2: It might be manna that falls from the sky. It
Speaker 2: might be a widow at Zaraphat that God uses to femie.
Speaker 2: It might be a little boy's lunch that I didn't
Speaker 2: even count in the official total because I thought he
Speaker 2: was insignificant.
Speaker 1: But the seed always looks small. God might use a
Speaker 1: little boy, a little thing that's a littless thing. I
Speaker 1: don't have to know how. And some of you are
Speaker 1: stuck because you need to know too much.
Speaker 2: You need to be perceived as someone who knows, and
Speaker 2: so you remain in darkness. You want to be perceived
Speaker 2: as someone who understands things that the soil represents uncertainty.
Speaker 2: And I think it's good every once in a while
Speaker 2: for us to hear a sermon where the farmer admits.
Speaker 1: I don't even know how.
Speaker 2: Come on, because if you had to call somebody who
Speaker 2: just lost their child in a car wreck, like I
Speaker 2: have to do off it, and you were telling them
Speaker 2: that God is going to get you through this, you
Speaker 2: wouldn't be.
Speaker 1: So quick to tell them how.
Speaker 2: I don't know how, but I pray right now in
Speaker 2: the name of Jesus that the God of all comfort,
Speaker 2: that's who.
Speaker 1: Would surround you with his angels. That's who.
Speaker 2: I don't know how, but I know whom I have believed.
Speaker 2: So I pray, I sew, I scatter, some seed gets snatched,
Speaker 2: some seed gets scorched, some seed gets strangled.
Speaker 1: I'd make a good sermon, wouldn't it. They all start
Speaker 1: with the letter.
Speaker 2: S and the temptation is when the seed is scattered
Speaker 2: but it does not produce. You never want to sew again.
Speaker 2: So then you prayed and the cancer still ate their body.
Speaker 2: What's to make you ever want to pray?
Speaker 1: Again?
Speaker 2: So you stopped sewing, you stopped expecting, you had a funeral,
Speaker 2: and stopped expecting a harvest.
Speaker 1: The business failed.
Speaker 2: That one child is on drugs, and you got very
Speaker 2: confused about the difference between God's job and your job.
Speaker 2: Obedience is the job of the farmer. Jesus is not
Speaker 2: the farmer in this parable. He's the seed. He's the seed.
Speaker 2: He is the seed of God, and he was planted
Speaker 2: in the soil of the earth for three days, and
Speaker 2: his resurrection gives us an expectation that we don't have
Speaker 2: to understand the events of our life.
Speaker 1: To walk in a posture.
Speaker 2: I think it's better sometimes that we don't know. I
Speaker 2: think it's better sometimes that we stay in a state
Speaker 2: of uncertainty so that we don't get confused and think
Speaker 2: that we're.
Speaker 1: The seed, that we're the source.
Speaker 2: And I pray that this message has been practical today
Speaker 2: and you'll be able to take something from it for
Speaker 2: your life. But really, I think it's supposed to be prophetic.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean a crystal ball or a nine hundred number.
Speaker 2: To me, that means that you receive this seed personally.
Speaker 2: It's all about the soil. And if this seed gets
Speaker 2: snatched or scorched by the trials of life, or choked
Speaker 2: out by the deceitfulness of riches, the cares of this life,
Speaker 2: or the desire for other things. It will be as
Speaker 2: if it was never sown, and it'll be just another seed,
Speaker 2: just another pep talk, just another Bible lesson.
Speaker 1: If you receive this seed, though, I'm trying.
Speaker 6: To tell you that God has set you free of
Speaker 6: the expectation to understand obedience is your job.
Speaker 7: Outcome is God's. Let him do his job. Let him
Speaker 7: do his job.
Speaker 1: Let the dirt do its work.
Speaker 2: Let the sufferings of this present time producing you a
Speaker 2: glory that is not worthy to be.
Speaker 1: Compared in comparison. Is so much bigger than that dirt.
Speaker 2: Some of you are a dirt stage right now of
Speaker 2: your dream. The first thing that happened to Joseph when
Speaker 2: God gave him a dream.
Speaker 1: Do you remember, they held a parade in his honor. Huh?
Speaker 2: He printed up his business cards and started handing them out.
Speaker 2: He got four million followers on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Huh. They threw him in a pit.
Speaker 2: Every promise needs a pit, every dream needs dirt.
Speaker 1: Your faith needs fertilizer.
Speaker 2: All by hisself, the ground produces grain, water it, plow it.
Speaker 2: Get your heart right, and let the dirt the rejection,
Speaker 2: the insecurity, the confusion.
Speaker 1: God is not the author of confusion.
Speaker 2: God did not reject you, but he will use Genesis
Speaker 2: fifty twenty. What you meant for evil, God intended it
Speaker 2: for good and the saving of many lives.
Speaker 1: Let the dirt do its work.
Speaker 2: Praying for people right now in this moment, everyone's standing.
Speaker 2: Who needed this word today? Because you've got something in
Speaker 2: the ground in your life. If it's you and you're
Speaker 2: not ashamed to respond to the word of God, and
Speaker 2: you don't need to appear to have it all together.
Speaker 2: If you are in a situation in your life where
Speaker 2: you don't know how, you don't know how it's going
Speaker 2: to come together, you don't know how to do what
Speaker 2: you've been positioned to do.
Speaker 1: Your responsibility exceeds your experience.
Speaker 2: If that's you today, at every location, lift your hands
Speaker 2: to your Father, Lord. Whoever's lifting their hands right now,
Speaker 2: they're saying to you without words, I don't know how, and.
Speaker 1: I believe this is a posture that you can honor. Father.
Speaker 2: You said, if we would umble ourselves in your sight,
Speaker 2: you would lift us out. But that when we're proud
Speaker 2: and that we're haughty, that you have to oppose us.
Speaker 2: And God, we want to line up on the right
Speaker 2: side today and understand that there's a part of this
Speaker 2: process of our growth and our faith and our families.
Speaker 1: And our psychology.
Speaker 2: And our life experiences and our goals, our visions, our
Speaker 2: ideas that we just don't know how. Some of us
Speaker 2: are standing at the crossroads of multimillion dollar business deals
Speaker 2: and we don't know how. Some of us are trying
Speaker 2: to buy a next meal, and we don't know how.
Speaker 1: Some of us are.
Speaker 2: Trying to figure out how to get married, and we
Speaker 2: don't know how.
Speaker 1: Some of us are trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: stay Mary.
Speaker 2: Then we don't know how. Pray the prayer say, I
Speaker 2: don't know how, God, but I know who. I believe
Speaker 2: that you are with me, and I declare that by
Speaker 2: your spirit I will rise like a seed planted in
Speaker 2: the earth, I will rise.
Speaker 1: I believe in resurrection. I don't know how, but I
Speaker 1: know who.
Speaker 2: Now, let me tell you something about resurrection. With your
Speaker 2: hands still lifted, Resurrection is not an event. Resurrection is
Speaker 2: a person. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the
Speaker 2: life so if you've got a situation in your life
Speaker 2: that needs to be resurrected, you don't have to know how.
Speaker 2: I don't have to understand that I know who is
Speaker 2: with me. I got the seed of the Word of God.
Speaker 2: I got the seed of faith. If I got faith
Speaker 2: the size of a mustard seed, I can say to
Speaker 2: this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea,
Speaker 2: and it shall be done. Get God a great price today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
Speaker 2: this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2: You can click the link in the description to give now,
Speaker 2: or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information
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Speaker 2: at Elevation Church.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening. God bless you.