Rick Warren - The Laws of Sowing and Reaping—Part One

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Well, we're talking about

your money.

That's right.

We're continuing a powerful series called Financial Fitness. Rick is

opening God's Word and showing us how to manage what

we've been given with wisdom, faith, and purpose. And I

know if you apply these biblical principles, you'll start to

experience true financial freedom and lasting peace. Such a great

lesson today. We're hearing part one of a message called

The Laws of Sowing and Reaping.

Now the Bible tells us that God is an organized God.

God is not a God of chaos. He's very orderly.

In fact, the more we look at the universe, the

more we realize how organized everything really is. In fact,

science continues to show us things we didn't even know

five years ago about the ecosystems on planet Earth. and

even the ecosystems in the universe, that everything is finely tuned.

Did you know that if our.

Earth, which is tilted on an axis, if it one

degree tilted this way, we would burn up, and one

degree that way, we'd freeze up?

Did you know that?

It is at the exact angle axis to sustain human life.

And everything is connected and there are laws. God has

established the universe around certain natural or physical and spiritual laws.

There are laws of physics. There are laws of mathematics.

There are laws of chemistry. We know these things. We

know that there are spiritual laws. We get the laws

of nature, obviously, the natural laws by looking.

At God's creation.

We get the spiritual laws by looking at God's word.

Now, the amazing thing is this.

You don't have to understand these laws to benefit from them.

In other words, you don't have to understand why God

does what he does You just have to cooperate with it.

And if you do, you're gonna benefit whether you understand

the law or not. For instance, I don't understand the

law of magnetism. Now, if I wanted to, I could

obviously go study it, I just haven't chosen to do so.

I don't know how magnetism works.

But it doesn't stop me from using a compass when

I get lost. I don't have to understand how it works,

I just know it works. I don't understand the laws

of electricity. But it doesn't stop me from flipping a

switch and using a light. I don't understand the laws

that cause the chemical reactions and internal combustion. It doesn't

stop me from driving a car. And, you know, I

don't understand the law of gravity. Now, nobody understands that one.

I mean, even Einstein said nobody understands the law of gravity.

In fact, it doesn't make sense. Because with something spinning around,

does that usually draw things to it or does it

repel them?

Yeah, it repels them. And the Earth is spinning around.

Seems like we should be floating off that way instead

of being held down. It doesn't make sense. No scientist

has ever given a full explanation of gravity. We're still

studying it. But I am sure glad that that law,

the law of gravity, is consistent. I mean, what if, say,

Tuesday and Thursdays were non-gravity days? Would that kind of

mess up your schedule a little bit? Yeah, and the

thing about God's laws is that because they are God's laws,

they are always true, and because they're always true, you

can count on them. The reason we were able to

send in the Apollo program, send guys to the moon

and back is because there's certain laws of physics we

know are inviolable. They cannot be changed. They're not theories.

They are laws, and if you do certain things, you

can count on it. And that's the only way we

make these scientific breakthroughs. Now, in this series, We're looking

at God's laws of money. We're looking at the laws

of wealth. We're looking at the laws of prosperity. Now

I said this last week, we are not a quote,

prosperity gospel church. We do not believe that God wants

everybody to be a millionaire. In fact, Jesus taught the

exact opposite. Jesus said a man's life consists not in

the abundance of things that you possess, and it's not

about the acquisition of things. But God has given certain

laws about Finances, in his words, in his word, laws

of spending, laws of saving, laws of investing, laws of

managing and using, laws of insuring, laws of giving. There

are all kinds of laws about money that if you

do these things, whether you understand them or not, you

will get blessed by them. You just cooperate with them.

And so we're looking at them. Now there are two

books in the Bible that deal a lot with this.

The book of Proverbs and the book of Ecclesiastes. I

mentioned last week that Solomon was the king of Israel.

He was the son of David.

And when he became king, God said, ask Solomon for

anything you want and I will give it to you.

Solomon thought about it and said, Lord, what I want

more than anything else is wisdom.

Wisdom, make me wise.

God said, Solomon, that's not only great wisdom, it's the

greatest one and because you asked the right thing, I'm

gonna give you everything else. I'm gonna give you power

and I'm gonna give you wealth as well as wisdom.

So Solomon became the wisest man who ever lived and

he also became the wealthiest man. And as a result,

he wrote two books and a lot of it has

to do with money management, the book of Ecclesiastes and

the book of Proverbs. Now in this series, week one,

we started looking at these laws. And first we looked

at Jesus' laws of wise money management. Seven Laws of

Wise Money Management. And if you missed that, you're going

to want to go back and listen to that series,

our message online. Then last week, we looked at the

law of contentment. And we talked about the five reasons

why we need to learn to be content and the

four ways to enjoy more on less. Now this week,

we're going to look at a third foundational law of

money management. And it is called the law or the

laws of sowing and reaping. The laws of sowing and reaping.

If you'll look at your outlines, the first verse on

the outline is Proverbs chapter 11, verse 18. And in

Proverbs 11:18

that verse, we have one example of the law of

sowing and reaping. It says there, the wicked man earns

deceptive wages. In other words, he earns them dishonestly. But

he who sows righteousness will be certain to reap a reward.

Now circle the word sow and the word reap. What's

he talking about here? This obviously is a verse about money.

He's talking about wages here. He's talking about your income.

And he says there's a dishonest way to make money

and there's an honest way to make money.

And he says if.

You sow honestly, you're gonna reap a reward. Now what

is he talking about, sowing and reaping? Well for thousands

of years, the only way people did farming was what

was called sowing. They didn't take a single seed and

put it in the ground dig a hole and cover

it up, put a seed in the ground, dig a

hole and cover it up.

Nobody did that. And they certainly didn't have machines.

That could poke holes and automatically seed a field like

they do today. And for thousands of years, people would

wear a little knapsack filled with grain or corn or

seed or whatever, And as the farmer would walk through

the field, he would sow, which means he'd grab a

handful of the seed and he'd throw it like this.

And this is called broadcasting. It's where we get the

term for television. Broadcasting means you're broadly casting it over

a large area as opposed to narrow casting.

Which is a very specific target.

Broadcasting, you throw seed over an area and some of

that seed grows. The birds eat and some of it

lands on rock and some of it, you know, actually

gets planted and it begins to grow. And the principle

is whatever you sow, you will reap in life. Now,

I want us to understand that this principle applies not

just in your money.

What we're going to look at today, these.

Nine laws will apply in your relationships, in your time,

in your words, in your talents. in the way you

use your energy and every other area. But let's get

right into it. Here are the nine laws of sowing

and reaping from the word of God. Number one, everything

starts as a seed. Everything in life starts as a seed.

Every idea is a seed, every dream is a seed,

every achievement is a seed, every building that's built, firstly

was a seed thought, it was a seed idea.

Your life began as a seed.

Everything starts as a seed in this planet. And God

created the world around what he calls the seed principle.

In the very first.

Chapter of the Bible, God calls this to our attention.

Genesis chapter one, verse 11, God said,' Let the land

have seed-bearing plants' and let the trees that bear fruit

with seed in it' according to their varieties.' Now everybody's

heard the old cliche that anybody can count the seeds

in an apple. But only God knows the number of

apples in a seed. Because the seed has exponential potential.

You could take one seed, plant it in the ground,

that seed grows into a giant tree, which produces fruit,

which has other seeds, which create more trees and more trees,

and over thousands of years, you could have an entire

forest of hundreds of thousands of acres from one single seed.

And the Bible says in the book of Zephaniah, do

not despise the day of small things because everything.

Starts small, it starts as a seed.

I grew up in Northern California in the redwood country.

The redwoods are the largest living things on the planet.

Nothing is bigger than the Northern California redwoods, not the

quails or anything else. And in fact, the largest living

thing on the planet is in Humboldt County. It is

a redwood tree that is 380 feet tall.

You can imagine that.

I grew up in a little town called Redwood Valley,

about 500 people. I have seen redwood trees where the

trunk was bigger than this half of the stage. And

when you would cut it off, you could turn it

into a dance floor. I have seen redwood trees where

they actually wanted to build a road and they would

carve out the road through the middle of the redwood

and you could drive through the redwood tree and the

tree is still growing hundreds of feet on.

Top of it.

They are enormous, enormous trees. And yet if you've ever

seen a redwood tree seed, they're dinky. It's like a

little speck of sand. or pepper, and you would look

at this little redwood seed and you'd go, how in

the world could something so big come from something so small,

so tiny? Well, that is the exponential potential in every seed.

Everything starts with a seed idea, a seed thought, a

seed dream.

When I started.

Saddleback with Kay, one of the verses that I held

onto is this verse, it's on the screen, Job 8,

verse seven says this, though what you start will seem significant,

small and insignificant. You'll end up in the future with much.

And that's what happens. Everything starts as a seed. Law

number two is this. Nothing happens until the seed's planted.

Nothing happens in your life until the seed is planted.

You know, a couple years ago, I bought some pumpkin

seeds because I like to grow vegetables. And it's just

one of the ways I relax and I like to

garden and grow vegetables. fresh things and I like to

watch stuff grow. So I got some pumpkin seeds.

You know what?

Those pumpkins never produced. And I couldn't figure out why

until last week I was going through the garage and

on a shelf I found those pumpkin seeds. Well, of

course they didn't produce because I never planted them. A

seed that's in a box on a shelf is worthless.

Seeds are meant to be planted. Now imagine a farmer

going out and spending his life savings to buy a

bunch of seed, and he's got it in his barn,

and as he gets ready to start springtime, he's looking

out on a barren field, and he bought all this seed,

and all of a sudden he goes, I don't know

if I should plant this or not. Because all my

life savings is tied.

Up in that seed.

And if I plant it, I might lose it. And

if I lose it, I've lost my life savings. I

don't think I want to plant it. I'm gonna play

it safe. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I'm not gonna plant

my seed. I'm simply going to hold on to it.

We would call that farmer a fool. because seed is

worthless unless it's planted. You gotta put it in the ground.

You know, it's like the old things on the Coke cans,

no deposit, no return. You gotta make a deposit with it. Now,

here's a farmer, and he's like some of you who

are out of work. Or your finances are barren. And

he's got a barren field. And he looks at this

field and there's no crop, there's no produce, there's no income.

He's got a field that's producing no income in his life.

Now, what does the.

Farmer do when he's got a barren field and it's

producing no income? Well, he doesn't complain about it. Oh,

I can't believe the terrible environment we're in right now.

I've got a barren field. He doesn't worry about it.

He doesn't gripe about it. Oh, the economy is so bad.

It's terrible. I'm not making any money. He doesn't even

pray about it. He just goes out and starts planting

some seed.

Because nothing's going to happen until he plants a seed.

He can pray all he wants, and it's not going.

To produce fruit.

All the prayer in the world is not going to

produce fruit.

He's got to plant. He's got to plant some seed.

Now some of you think you're waiting on God. You

think you're waiting on God for that job. You think

you're waiting on God for a husband. You think you're

waiting on God for the big deal. You think you're

waiting on God for the windfall, for the income to

come in that's there. And God said, you think you're

waiting on me?

What? I'm waiting on you.

I'm waiting for you to plant some seed. It isn't

going to happen until you plant some seed. Everything in

life starts as a seed. A relationship, a marriage, a business,

a church, everything starts as a seed. And nothing happens

until the seed is planted. Now why is God doing this?

Because planting is an act of faith. I take what

I've got and I give it away. And I put

it in the ground and I bury it. And that

takes an act of faith because it takes what I've

got and I let go of it. And God says

that planting is an act of faith and that brings

glory to God. Now Jesus explained this principle when he

was trying to explain why he came to earth to

die on the cross. He used the principle of sowing

and reaping. Look at this next verse. In John 12, 24,

Jesus said, unless a grain of wheat is buried in

the ground, It cannot reproduce.

As long as it's stocked in the barn, it's worthless.

Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground,

he's talking about his own death, it cannot reproduce. But

if it dies, it will produce much fruit. Millions of

people will be saved and get to go to heaven

because of my death and my burial. He said, I'm

going to plant a seed and the seed is going

to be my life. Now, here's a principle. I want

you to write this down. Whenever I have a need,

I plant a seed. Whenever I have a need, I

plant a seed.

I don't know what you need.

More time, more energy, more money, more support, more relationships,

more wisdom.

I don't know what you want.

But whatever you need more of, you plant a seed.

This is the principle of sowing and reaping. When I

have a need, I don't gripe about it. I don't

complain about it. I don't wish about it. I don't

even have to pray about it.

I just plant a seed.

What a fantastic message from Pastor Rick. You know, Daily

Hope is changing lives every day. Here's Pastor Rick with

a letter from one of our listeners.

You know, friends, it always encourages me to hear how

God is using Daily Hope to help you. And so

thanks for your letters. And I want to read one

to you today from a woman named Judith. She said,

Dear Pastor Rick, After college, I met and married a

man that God did not intend for me, but I

became pregnant with triplets, and the marriage was tumultuous, and

I endured more pain and more loneliness and more sadness

than I could have ever imagined. But God still showed

me his grace and love, and he sustained and he

comforted me. But as I was left to work and

care for three babies, I clung on to God, and

I listened to your daily podcast every day, And sometimes

it was as if God was speaking directly to me.

I read your Daily Hope devotionals and I read the

Bible and I prayed and it was tough, but I

survived and I'm still surviving because of God. You know,

after your series on tithing, I felt convicted and started tithing,

even though mathematically it was literally impossible for me to tithe.

But I trusted God with what I had and God

has covered the tithing and blessed me with even more.

And I'm now starting your series on prayer. And I

can't wait to grow closer to God and walk in

his purposes for my life instead of my own purposes.

Thank you, Pastor Rick, for doing God's work. Well, Judith,

I want to thank you. Thank you that you wrapped

your arms tightly around God during such an incredibly hard

season in your life.

You've been through some really.

Challenging times, and I'm blessed to see that Daily Hope

has played a part in deepening your trust in God.

You're seeing God's faithfulness, and you're seeing his provision, and

that's increasing your trust.

And that makes me smile. God bless you, Judith.

You know, Pastor Rick would love to hear how this

broadcast has blessed you. So please send him an email

at rick at pastorrick.com. That's rick at pastorrick.com. It's a

simple way to encourage and bless Pastor Rick and the

whole Daily Hope team. We hope you'll join us next

time as we look into God's word for our daily hope.

This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and

your generous financial support.

Thank you.