March 17, 2013
Philip D. Eberhart
Seedtime & Harvest
Coming from the farm country, I’ve always had a love for the
soil and for the culture that is on display in the Holy Scriptures. Seed plays a prominent place in the life of
the People of God and in the lore and the teachings of the Bible, as well as in
the teachings of Jesus himself.
We are familiar with many of the passages throughout the
Bible – just the simple word “seed” is found about 100 times throughout the
scriptures, most prominently in the teachings of Jesus in the Parable of the
sower and the soils.
Seed is symbolic in significant ways throughout the
scriptures:
It is seen as PROMISE, or POTENTIAL
It was seed that God created in the beginning and
fruit-bearing plants that each cast seeds into the ground. The laws of God take this into consideration,
and in planting a vineyard or a fruit grove, Israel was forbidden from eating
its fruit for 3 years, then the 4th year was given away as a gift to
the Lord. Only in the fifth year could
the owner of the vineyard begin to enjoy its fruit!
Seed is connected to planting and harvest. The agrarian peoples knew the cycles of the
seasons and the dry and the wet seasons each year for their land. There was a connection to the land for them
in very real ways.
This morning I want to remind us of the purpose of seed and
how it is defined for us today, in our concrete jungle. We have separated ourselves from the
practices and only know the fruits of the harvest. We go to the grocery store and have come
disconnected from the land and its part in this process.
This morning I want to look at what ‘seed’ stands for and at
the law of sowing and reaping that we see in nature and in scripture.
Seed is used in Scripture in two basic ways –
In the Old Testament, we see the progeny of the patriarchs,
especially Abraham, referred to as “seed.”
The promise of God to Abraham was that his ‘seed’ would outnumber the
grains of sand on the shore, or the stars of heaven. That is, of course, all that would come from
his joining with his wife, Sarah.
The OT is also clear that ‘seed’ is God’s provision for His
people. From the first creation of
seed-bearing plants to the provision of manna, which is described as being like
“coriander seed,” God was using seed to teach His people about provision from
Him.
Seedtime and Harvest were the bookends of life in the Middle
East, as they are in much of the world, even today. Those times were the benchmarks of God’s
blessing or God’s judgment on His People through the provision of rain and
growing weather and a good harvest.
But for God, the question of faithfulness was not on his
part but on the part of the People of God.
It’s always been that way. God
has set the seasons and the times – the seedtime and the harvest time – the
growing season, and it is God who sends or withholds the rains, both early and
late. Perhaps there is something for us
to take note of, even in the simple acknowledgement of God as the giver of the
blessing of seed.
Of course the other image that we have of seed is in the
Seed of the Word. The Parable of the
Sower shows us a picture of a farmer out broadcasting his seed – and as a
farmer myself, I would say that the sower is sowing foolishly. He is sowing not on prepared ground, but mostly
on soil that is unprepared, hard, rocky, or thorny with weeds all around the
seed.
That’s why I feel that it is almost as much a parable of the
soils and a parable about the sower, but I want to look for a minute at the
later.
The Sower here is the Lord, God or Jesus himself as he
passes through the world casting out the seed of truth to all kinds and
conditions of men. The sower, in this
instance, is not concerned with the where as much as he is concerned with the
what. The parable itself challenges us
to examine the “soil” of our own hearts and consider the kind of soil that we
are personally:
Hard pack soil – No seed can penetrate – it is taken away by
birds and eaten immediately.
Thorny soil - that
which is taken up by the cares of life, worried about this and that; unable to
give the seed any attention (water) in his/her life. Thus the seed is choked out.
Rocky soil - shallow
soil that hasn’t been plowed or made ready in any way for the seed. Had it been
“examined” in the least the rocks and lack of depth would have been discovered.
Or Good soil – the kind of soil that has been examined and
broken – plowed up – in order to make it ready for the seed – optimized for the
seed is a way that we might talk about that soil today!
Of course its clear from experience this past year that soil
and planting are not all there is to it.
Weeding and watering come along the way as we move toward the
harvest. Nothing is more irritating to
me than driving along the highway and seeing a wheat field that has green weeds
sticking up through the ripening wheat.
Jesus used such a parable as well for the presence of the world in the
midst of the church – the parable of the wheat and the tares (weeds). We will have to save that for another day.
The final things I want to consider this morning is the law
of God behind all this imagery that Jesus uses and behind the ways that God
seems to see our giving as seed.
As I was in university and seminary, Oral Roberts was
constantly teaching a doctrine called “seed faith.” I have come to be suspicious of that, because
I saw how it was used to manipulate people to give, and for many years I
rejected it outright, but I cannot dismiss the clear implications of the
statements of Paul and of Jesus that equate seed with our giving and our faith.
Jesus uses these two in a comparative form – equating the
faith needed to move a mountain with the size of a mustard seed. So he didn’t say that faith itself is a seed,
but that it is like a seed in its size.
There is a comparison in the area of size. In other words, it only takes the smallest
amount of faith to do great things, friends.
That is the point of the parable and the comparison.
Paul, as he talks about seed in 2 Cor 9, is clearly, by the
context, equating seed with the gift that the church in Corinth had promised to
Paul for the Jerusalem church and their Jewish brothers and sisters. Paul had apparently been telling others about
the gift being gathered in Corinth and was now reminding them to “make good” on
their promise.
What Paul makes reference to here is what I call the Law of
Sowing and Reaping:
2 Cor 9:6
Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will
also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
To which any 10 year old will say, “Well, duh!” How can it be any other way? We know that there is a direct correlation
between what is put in the ground and what comes up! This is not rocket science!
But Paul here is talking not about the planting of seed in
the ground, but about the sowing of a gift – a bountiful gift – with those in
need around you.
V. 7 puts it squarely in each of our own consciences – “as he has purposed in his heart, not
grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” I looked up the Greek word for cheerful and
it’s the root word for our word “hilarious!”
And God is that kind of Giver, because the next verse seems
to indicate that He will be the supply for that kind of giving!
V. 8: And God is able to make all grace abound to
you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an
abundance for every good deed;
It is God’s intention that we partake in this Law of sowing
and reaping that He has set into the universe.
Why? For HIS GLORY.
Look further along at vvs 9-11 & 15
“…as it is written,
"HE SCATTERED ABROAD, HE GAVE TO THE POOR, HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS ENDURES
FOREVER."
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; you will be enriched in
everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to
God. For the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of
the saints, but is also overflowing through many thanksgivings to God.
Thanks be to God for
His indescribable gift!”
Friends, God wants us to be givers. It is good for us and it is good for
Him! It gives us freedom and it gives
Him glory.
We must take note of the law of sowing and reaping. That God’s word is seed for us and even that
it is seed IN us. We must prepare a
place – a heart of good soil – in which that eternal, imperishable seed may
fall and grow up to eternal life.
We also need to take note that God sees our giving and money
as seed for good works, and he is willing to increase the store of our seed,
not for our comfort and expenditure, but for the glory of His work in the
world.
I think it’s dangerous to use the money we give as a kind of
‘bribe’ to get something from God, and sometimes that the way that the “seed
faith” teaching is used or at least, the way it comes across. But the fact remains, clear from scripture,
that God equates our money with seed that can be planted and harvested. And where there is no planting, there is no
harvest. It’s that simple. Those are the rules.
That being said, there is one final word: This area of giving is the only one where we
are invited by God to “test him.” Jesus,
when he was being tempted by the devil in the wilderness, as we heard in the
beginning lessons of Lent, was taken to the pinnacle of the temple and told to
jump, because “God will send his angels to bear you up, lest you bruise you
foot against a stone.” Jesus quickly
responds that we are not to “test the Lord our God.” And David prays that he will be kept from
“presumptuous sin.”
This one area God invites us to test him in: Can I out-give God?
Malachi 3 is clear that God throws down the gauntlet for
us. Not as a seed of faith but as an act
of love and obedience – giving hilariously out of extravagant love for Jesus,
we place ourselves in the target sights for God’s challenge. See if
I will not pour out on you a blessing you cannot contain!
The answer is NO!
NO, you cannot out give God!
Let us pray.
Eternal God you are the giver of every perfect gift that
comes down from heaven. You are the
supplier of seed for the sower and bread for the eater. You are our eternal
supply and we ask you to make us into that kind of church – one that sees and
knows you to be its Lord and its provider, Jehovah Jireh! Make each of us a giver like you, Lord,
laying our lives down for each other, and awaiting the provision of God and His
promise. Thank you Lord Jesus, for Your
indescribable gift of yourself to us – make us like you.
In Your name and for the sake of Your Kingdom we pray,
Amen.
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