Pastor Brodie Kalamen | Be the Blessing | November 22, 2020

Welcome to KCC.

So glad to have you with us today.

We like to always start these online services with an invitation for you to go ahead and invite some of your family friends, throw a few text messages out, share the stream, let people know that we are live.

It's always great when people are coming together to hear the word of God together.

For all those who are watching faithfully online and giving faithfully online, thank you for leading from your living room.

I know that we have uh limited seating for our in-person services, and some of you are using that opportunity to just gather at home and lead from your living room.

And it's so wonderful to know that you're taking notes, you're conversing with each other, you're you're engaging in the worship, you're engaging with the word, you've got your notepad and paper out.

Keep that up.

Thank you for doing all you can do uh to continue to push this mission forward and don't grow weary in doing good.

Don't faint, don't get fatigued in doing well.

God has a purpose in this time for us and as a church, and it's not gonna stop.

We're gonna continue to make a difference in our world.

And the the kingdom message and the good news is gonna continue to go out.

It's great to have everyone here.

We're gonna continue on our series, be the blessing.

And it's where we endeavor to live life with an open hand and love with an open heart.

And it's this generous heart that is in us to give.

And if you struggle with that word blessing, because it seems a little maybe dated, go ahead and just exchange it with the word giving.

Be the giver, be the one who's giving, be the one who's looking for ways to be generous, generous in your lifestyle.

Uh, we've done this a number of years, taking the time at this time of the year to uh give with uh be generous in our um our acts of service, in our offerings, being support to different places in our community.

This year, we're giving to our missions, we're giving to local uh non-for-profits, primarily the Okanagan Valley Pregnancy Care Center.

We're doing a toy run and we're raising money to be able to uh give gifts to the kids in our community.

Uh, we're just looking for different areas to be a blessing.

And if you're thinking about that, go on our website, kcc.net, and all those areas where we're particularly investing into and being generous to at this time, uh go ahead and look at them, and you can apply, you can give, you can be a part of the part of making a difference, part of the team to make a difference.

This week uh we're actually we've got a message called Sow the Blessing.

And what does it look like to be the one who's sewing a blessing?

How do we go about sewing and planting blessings?

What does that look like for us?

So, two weeks ago we talked about be the giver, that we've been blessed to be a blessing.

We talked about last week knowing the blessings.

We can't give what we don't know that we already have.

We got to know what's in our pocket, we got to know what's in our hand to be the blessing.

Ephesians 1 3 says, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm.

It's all ours.

It all blitz for us to give.

So we need to know the blessing so we can give them.

And today, sow the blessing.

God's blessed us, so now we got to go and sow the blessing.

Go and do it.

And what better time to do that than now?

So, what we're going to do is look at this scripture in Matthew chapter 19, verse 1 and 9.

Matthew 19:1

Uh, it's a parable of Jesus, and his parable is being taught or communicated to a crowd of people.

And the crowd was so large that he actually had to get into a boat, push his way out into the water, and speak from the boat to the shoreline where the people had gathered because they had pressed on all sides around him.

He just found it easier to get in the water and preach to the mountainside in Galilee.

So the crowd was there.

And every time Jesus spoke, he he addressed this crowd, and he knew that there was a crowd that was present.

And we need to realize that there's a crowd present.

We need to realize that there's a crowd that exists.

Um as a parent, we always have a crowd.

We've got our kids looking at us, watching us, following us, modeling after us.

We've got our own little crowd, if it's just in your home.

But most of us have a crowd in our community, in our neighborhood, in our church, in our in our businesses.

We've got people watching us, and each person is an individual of that crowd, has an individual story and an individual perspective, and they're watching us.

And Jesus made it very aware that there is a crowd, and he acknowledged the crowd.

He acknowledged the people in the crowd.

And at one point he wept over the crowd as he said, Listen, this crowd is like sheep without a shepherd.

They're lost, they're looking with their questions, they're looking as skeptics, they're looking as people who are looking for answers, and they're watching, and they're watching us to see how we're going to love those who are close to us, how we're going to love those who are far from us, how we're going to give of our resources, how we're going to model life, how we love our family, how we give towards other to others.

They're watching everything we do, and they want to see authenticity, they want to see honesty, they want to see truth in how we live and operate.

And I know that we can be a blessing.

The Bible says that out of your mouth can come blessing or cursing.

And we know we want to be a blessing.

We want to choose blessing.

We want to choose life over death.

I've seen people fall before, and they never realized until the state of their failure, how many people were affected by their failure, the collateral damage, the ripple effect on their family.

And I want to be the opposite of that.

I don't want to fail.

I want to be a blessing.

I want to go ahead and make a difference and see what that effect does to my community, to all the people that are the unknown, the silent group that is watching and modeling and listening to how we're living our lives.

So this parable is a lesson to the crowd.

That means everyone.

Jesus spoke this parable to everyone listening.

So you can include yourself in this, in this parable.

You can include yourself in this message and read it as I read it, actually.

You can read along with me, but read it as if Jesus was speaking to you.

Matthew nine thirteen, verse one.

It says, That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake.

Such large crowds gathered around him that he got in a boat, he sat in that boat, while all the people stood on the shore.

Then he told them many things in parables, saying, A farmer went out to sow his seed.

As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, the birds came and ate it up.

Some fell on rocky places where it didn't have much soil.

It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow, but when the sun came up the plants were scorched and they withered because they had no root.

Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.

Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop that was a hundred, sixty, thirty times what was sown.

Whoever has ears, let him hear.

If anyone's like me, I you know, you read this parable and you immediately think of that end line where the good soil becomes that place where a single seed is reproduced into a hundred times, hundred X, sixty times, thirty times uh return.

And you think, man, I want to be that seed.

I want to be in that soil, I want to have that type of return.

And sometimes that, and for a long time, that's where that lesson, that parable stopped for me.

I want to be that seed.

And God's telling me, and Jesus is telling me it's possible to have that kind of return.

And what it does is it makes it all about me and what I can receive in this parable.

And it's a very interesting way to view the parable.

It's not wrong, it's just it's one perspective.

I think I put myself in the center of that story, and I put myself in that uh parable, and I see myself as that good soil, and I think there's more of a lesson to be learned by this parable.

I love the idea of this farmer who goes out, and he just goes out in wild abandon, and he's willing to imagine where his seed's gonna fall, where it's gonna grow, and and the unexpected return he's going to get, even if he sows in unexpected places.

And I can imagine as I've had opportunity to do this, and probably you have too, where you've planted seeds in a field, and perhaps you've done that little lesson as a kid where you had a syrofoam cup with dirt, and you put your bean seed in there and you sat it on the windowsill, and you just watched for it to grow.

I actually had a job outside of high school in between my years of Bible school and my years in university, where I actually worked at a commercial garden.

We could hardly wait for the day when we could sow in that field.

And it was just beautiful.

This field would be freshly tilled, it was just barren.

It would and there was a certain smell of the ground having been just turned, and the expectation was in the air as we went out.

We just planted the field.

Planted this massive garden, and we would watch as the seedlings would pop up, and uh, then the work would begin to nurture and care for the seeds, and and uh we would go and pick all the produce that came and package it up and sell it, and it was such an incredible opportunity to watch this process.

There's a slight difference, however, in this story uh regarding today's method of farming versus another method of farming that Jesus is talking about.

In today's modern-day farming, and this is according to family that we have from Saskatchewan and the breadbasket of Canada, they literally have trucks now that have GPS in the vehicles that guide them through the fields, and they have these air seeders that inject the seeds into the perfect depth of the ground where the seed will have the maximum return.

And they are very efficient in their in their seeding.

The good soils maximized for uh productivity in the seed is never wasted on bad soil.

It's avoided.

Every seed would have a purpose today.

And this modern technique seems to be even more efficient and effective, and we think we're more graduated because of the way we do this.

However, Jesus is telling a story, and he's making a point in this parable.

And it's a point that is common sense, should be common sense to the people listening and even to us today.

As we listen about wasting this valuable seed, and perhaps you even thought that way when I was reading the parable.

You think about this sower who goes out into a field and he's not efficient or careful.

He just scatters the seed and he seems crazy.

And the crowds listening were probably thinking, that's not the way to do it.

He's scattering it everywhere.

And Jesus draws their attention at that point to the four types of soil that he's scattering the seed onto.

He says the first soil is the soil of the path.

And this is the kind of soil that's hard, it's packed, and the and it's a gravelly road.

It's the kind of trail that you would see along Mission Creek Greenway, where vehicles are going over it, bikes are going over it, people are walking over it, animals are walking over it.

It's dense, it's compact.

And the Bible says that this is the kind of ground where people hear the message of the good news.

They hear the message of this blessing, and they don't understand it.

So the evil one comes in real quick, and birds come down and they grab the seed and they take off with the seed, essentially robbing the ground of opportunity and robbing the seed of opportunity to grow.

It's oftentimes very heartbreaking.

And John 10, 10 says, this enemy comes to rob, kill, steal, destroy.

It's intentional.

And I've seen these opportunities that have happened with people where they've heard the message but just didn't land.

And before there was enough time, the enemy came and just robbed that seed, stole that seed.

And it seems like a success of the enemy.

It seems heartbreaking that there was so much potential and now it's lost.

The second ground, second soil is this rocky soil.

And the parable goes on to say he scatters the seed on the rocks.

The soil is referring to someone who hears the word and at once, right away, accepts it, embraces it with joy.

And this seed, however, is unable to develop roots.

So after a short time, when the sun comes up, the heat is on, whatever was planted gets burned up because the seed didn't have the deep roots.

They accepted it quickly with joy, it grew really fast, but the sun burnt it up when the heat came on.

And we read about Psalm 92, verse 13, where the scripture says you need to be planted in the house of God.

Psalms 92:13

Like literally grow your roots deep.

Developing deep roots is essential for developing health spiritually.

Spiritual health, your spiritual maturity, your spiritual growth is really dependent on those root systems that you build.

You need to put roots down deep in the house of God.

And if you do that, you'll flourish in the courts of God.

The third soil is this thorny soil.

And he scatters the seed on the thorny soil.

The seed falls among thorns, and it refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of life and the deceitfulness of wealth and the chasing of things that are material in the world make it unfruitful.

And the anxieties of life come in and just choke out the opportunity for fruit.

1 Peter 5 7 says, Cast your cares, your burdens, your anxieties on him, because he actually cares for us.

And in this scenario, the person doesn't do that.

The seed lands and it has opportunity to grow, but before it has opportunity to bear fruit, it gets choked out.

The last soil is the good soil.

He scatters the soil on this rich soil.

And the return from the good soil is 30 times, 60 times, 100 times return.

And it produces a crop and it yields fruit.

And this is the kind of soil when we hear about we want to be calm.

We want to jump right into that place where we're the good soil.

In fact, we start to identify or silo our lives into areas that are like good soil.

And we tend to look at, oh, this is a bad place, or this is in a rocky area, and I want to I want to be good soil.

And I've yet to meet someone who actually admits that they're not good soil.

Because in our heart we overestimate our own performance and our own ability, and we overestimate our capability to actually be this good soil.

We're better than we think, we believe.

And we judge others and we condemn others and we look to others, and thank goodness I'm not like that.

Where we we we need to realize that this lens of productivity that we look through is really important to our lives, how we we view ourselves and view others.

Both Matthew, Mark, Luke all told us to be cautious and to uh be righteous and walk right with God and to be faithful.

And so we realize there's an expectation on us, and we think, hey, we're in a good place, we're gonna be that good soil.

Yet when we think about it, we realize that our lives don't really match the good soil return.

And that we're not that kind of productive, we're not productive the way we actually uh we actually think we are.

If we're honest with ourselves, we realize that in life uh things are unpredictable, things are unexplainable, things are uncertain, and they're unknowable outcomes.

And we know the people even who have the strongest faith, who are kind and generous and righteous and do right, they even struggle.

And they sometimes experience hard, hard uh lessons in life.

I think about people who give.

And there are many people who give their tithe, the 10% of their income, they bring it to the church and they bring it to the house of God, and they they give in faith, and they still struggle, though, with their finance.

I think about people who get married and they go through the whole process of premarital and go before a congregation and a pastor and before God, and they announce their vows to one another, and their marriages still struggle.

I think about people who watch their health, treat their body well, treat their um, you know, honor God with the things that they put into their body, and they still struggle with their health.

We know suffering and sin doesn't seem to follow a pattern.

In fact, the Bible says the rain will fall on the just and the unjust alike.

We're all going to experience the effect of that rain.

And we know that there are those who've lived life or uh, you know, were with question that seem to have the leg up on those who have done things right.

So, where how do we how do we compensate for this?

How do we convey this in our own rational spational thought?

Jesus, when he's speaking this word, he he's reminding us of of the different types of soil.

And if we were honest, much of the time with ourselves, and we were able to assess ourselves as we go to communion where we inspect ourselves, not others, ourselves.

We realize that we have hardy, hard, rocky places in our own lives.

We we know that we have places that are like the gravel road, that are just packed down and that are resistant to any kind of change.

They haven't even been brought into the place where God is able to be Lord of that area of your life.

And we realize that in our life we've got thorns that are choking out anxieties, uh, material lust in our life, greed, selfishness that's existent in our own heart.

And we think about that.

And and we be if we become sensitive to that, we we become aware of that, we can actually look at ourselves the way that Jesus is intending this parable to be.

In this parable, we get caught up in the business of the seed and the Soil.

We like to imagine where we fit and we think about it.

We we try and assess and take the test.

Where do I fit in the seed and soil spot?

But the parable is not about the seed and the soil.

Jesus gives us a clue right at the very beginning of this parable.

He said, This is the parable about the sower.

This parable is not about the soil.

It's not about the seed.

It's not about you.

It's about him.

It's about God.

The parable is about illustrating our God as being a sowing God, a very liberal, a very extravagant, a very productive and gracious God, who seems radical and haphazard and a little crazy when it comes to throwing his seed everywhere.

When Jesus explains this parable, he never encourages or exhorts people or anyone to be a good soil or to be a good seed.

So when you read this parable, forget about being anything in this parable.

Don't be a good seed, don't be a good soil.

He says this parable is to illustrate to you the sower.

It's about the one who works the field, who owns the field.

It's about the one who plants the seed.

It's about a God who sees potential, even in rocky places, even in thorny soil, knowing that seeds may not grow in the greatest conditions.

God scatters and he plants and he blesses everywhere, anywhere, anyways.

Sowing his word, sowing blessings into that soil.

It's about a God who actually loves to scatter seed even on hard-packed soil, even on rocky soil.

The soil, no matter what it looks like, of those four soils is acceptable for seed.

Good enough for the blessing.

And the sower seems to be scattering the seed this way.

It probably won't grow.

We know it will probably get stolen.

We know it'll probably get robbed, choked out, dried up when the heat comes on, but he does it anyways.

And what this parable tells us is that God has decided to scatter grace, mercy, love in all areas.

God has modeled grace, modeled love, modeled mercy to everyone, anywhere, at any point of their life.

The parable shows a God who scatters on the rocks, scatters on the road, scatters on the sea, on the thorny ground.

Anyone who can receive it is open and welcome to receive the seed.

The seed is not discriminated, uh, is is not discriminatory, it's not scattered into discriminate areas.

It's an indiscriminate scattering.

God shows that whether good soil, bad soil, that the world needs the soil, the seed.

And the sower sees through that lens, he doesn't see good or bad, he just sees seed.

And the productivity of the soil doesn't determine whether he sows or not.

It doesn't determine if God blesses or he doesn't.

The sower sows because the sower has decided to scatter seed.

And there's nothing that we can do to change that.

It's in his nature, it's in his nature to bless.

And so in our desire to be like him, to be like a God, the God who every good and perfect gift comes from, who satisfies our every desire with good things, who doesn't hold one good thing back from us, we want to be able to bless like he's blessed us.

And if we take this example of Jesus as he's speaking to the crowd, the multitude of people on the shore, he's saying, It doesn't matter the state of your heart, the blessing is gonna go out, the blessing is gonna get scattered, the sower is gonna sow seed, and it's your choice.

It's up to you.

Are you gonna receive it?

But be aware, there's gonna be rocky ground, enemies are gonna come, there's gonna be thorny ground, anxieties are gonna change, are gonna choke it out, there's gonna be rocky soil, and you're gonna have trouble pushing your roots down.

And if you're not careful, you'll get burned up, or you're gonna have good ground, you're gonna receive it and experience a blessing that's forever.

If our blessing is going to be, if we're going to bless like that, if we're gonna bless like him, we need to bless like that.

We need to be uh undeterred when it comes to throwing our seed into areas where we know that the enemy's gonna come and probably steal that seed.

Or we're gonna sow over here, and I know that the roots aren't very deep, and the roots aren't gonna going down deep, and it will probably just dry up, but we're gonna scatter there anyways.

And we know that there's gonna be, we're gonna scatter where places are, where people won't bear fruit.

They might grow, but they're not gonna bear fruit.

We're gonna scatter there anyways, and we're gonna keep scattering in good places.

I love this idea and this mission we've got this year of giving out toys to our community.

We don't know what this effect will have.

We're just gonna scatter toys.

We're gonna send toys to every little child and family and parts of our community here that we can.

We're gonna be a blessing to that community.

We're gonna take care of the families in our in our own community, but we're gonna be a blessing to others.

We're gonna support others, and we don't know what that'll look like, but we're gonna do it regardless.

We scatter the blessing.

And if you are listening today and you're thinking, wow, this is a liberal God.

Has he scattered my way?

Has he thrown blessings my way?

And I would I would say to you today, yes, he has, and he's speaking right now to you to receive this blessing of grace, receive this blessing of love, receive this mercy and forgiveness for your sin.

Receive it today, receive a new beginning and a new start and a new uh initiation into a new journey.

God has a plan and a purpose for you.

He loves you, cares for you, and has plans for you.

And for those of you who are listening today, you've never experienced this before.

Uh, this is the day of salvation.

This is the moment of salvation.

There are people who are listening today who are going to take this message and go, I'm gonna scatter like God the Father has everywhere, anywhere.

I'm gonna be generous in my gestures, in my gifts, in my talents, in my treasure.

I'm gonna be generous with my smiles and my word and my actions.

But for you today, maybe that first step of generosity is to receive.

And we would like to introduce you to Jesus.

We'd like to introduce you to the one who's going to make a difference in your own heart.

And it starts with this a prayer.

It starts with a prayer where we begin to accept the fact that we've sinned, we've done things our own way, and we've walked our own path, and we need help, and we need to repent and say, I'm sorry, I need you.

And we believe that Jesus is the only one who can lead us to the Father, and that He took care of every wrong and every sin that we would have caused in time.

We He's taking care of it.

Our past, present, future, He's taking care of it all so that we could have uh a relationship with Him.

And we confess Him to be our Lord and Savior, and we say, Jesus, come into my heart, lead my life, lead me to the Father.

I was far from God.

Would you bridge that gap and bring me close?

Would you pray this prayer with me?

It's on the screen.

I encourage you to read it with me as I as I read it today.

Lord Jesus, thank you for coming to earth.

I believe you died and rose again so that I could be forgiven and have a friendship with you.

And right now I ask you to forgive me from all my sin as I let the past go.

I ask you to come into my life, be my savior.

I receive you today as my savior and my Lord.

Make me the person you want to be.

You want me to be.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

Thank you for accepting this challenge.

Thank you for being a blessing.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May his face shine upon you.

May He be gracious to you and give you peace.

God bless you.