Parable of the Seed

Today's parable emphasizes the day by day of growth in the spiritual

life. See thee more clearly every day, just a little bit better.

Love thee more dearly, closer to God, and follow thee more, nearly

more obedient, more faithful every day, just a little bit. If

you had to make a list right now of all the things that are frustrating

in your life, probably most of the things on that list would be

that things go too slow, future plans just not moving fast

enough. Maybe a relationship isn't developing fast. Spiritual

growth feels like it's just inches along at best. Your educational

or your athletic milestones seem slow to achieve. You're being

a witness for Christ and trying to bring others to Christ,

but nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to respond. Maybe you're

doing all the right things, but nothing seems to be happening.

That's what the parable of the grower is about. Growth you can't

control, but growth you can trust. We live in a world of the

immediacy. I like it. I like to track my packages. I like to track

my Uber when a guy's coming to my house. I like that you refresh

a page, expect it like that. You put up something on social media,

and if the likes don't move fast enough, you get nervous, like

somehow you failed. Of course, AI is moving us into a whole new

level of immediacy we've never seen before. But the most important

things in life refuse to develop on demand. They take time,

character, faith, calling, leadership. They grow steadily. They

almost grow out of sight. And Jesus tells a parable that almost

feels anticlimactic when you hear it. Unlike some of the others,

there's no drama, there's no crisis, there's no villains, there's

no tension point one next week. There's going to be a lot of

tension point in that one. But this one's just simple. It's a farmer

who scatters his seed and then waits. That's all he does. He just

waits for something to happen. And Jesus introduces that parable

with this phrase. He says, that is what the kingdom of God is

like. If you ever wondered whether or not you're quiet or obedience

matters, this is the parable for you. And if you've ever wondered

how you really fit into the Great Commission, that's our verse

of the year. This is also the parable for you. Our verse of the

year says, go make disciples, O all nations. And be sure of this,

I meet with you even to the end of the age. If we're to go to

all nations, not Physical nations. We talked about that last

semester. But to nations of influence. Some of you are going

to influence the arts. Some of you are going to influence medicine.

Some of you are going to influence business. Some of you are

going to influence education. You are going to go into nations

where if you don't have the right credentials, they won't let

you in. And in those nations, you are going to have influence.

Well, how do we build the kingdom of God in those places? And

this parable gives us four characteristics of kingdom evangelism

and what our role and responsibility is in it. It's real

short, so let me read it to you again. It was read nicely to

us earlier, but here's the scripture again. Jesus said the kingdom

of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground night

and day. While he's asleep or awake. The seed sprouts and grows,

but he does not understand how it happens. The earth produces the

crops on its own. First the leaf blade pushes through. Then the

heads of the wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens. And

as soon as the grain is ready, the farmer comes and harvests it

with a sickle for the harvest time has come. In this scripture,

there are four important kingdom principles on which we need

to build our lives. The first one is kingdom starts with scattering

seed. Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters

seed on the ground. The farmer doesn't manufacture life. The farmer

doesn't engineer germination. The farmer is not responsible for

the growth. He simply scatters seed. You see, faithfulness begins

with obedience, not trying to force outcomes on you or anybody

else. You and I are called to scatter the love and the grace and

the joy and the justice and the goodness of God. Wherever we

are. That's our responsibility to scatter through our daily choices,

through lifting up others instead of tearing them down through

integrity, especially when nobody's watching. When you speak

truth graciously, that's scattering through quality. Friendships

were scattering by connecting to the people who were overlooked.

Even how you prepare for your future vocation. That is scattering

seed for where you're going to have influence. You scatter the peaceful

presence in the world of fear and chaos and tension and danger.

That's what the world is like. And here we come scattering the seeds

of Christ and peace in that environment. And it's a night and

day clash. And Jesus was responsible for the outcomes. I think

sometimes, maybe because we're at a Christian college, we tend to

think, you know, it's not so rough out There. No, it's pretty

rough out there. It really is. It's pretty scary. It's pretty overwhelming

if you don't know Christ. So let me illustrate this to you in

kind of a different context. Okay, I'll tell you a story from

a long time ago. But it illustrates for me what the message

of Christ and the love of Christ can do in a scary, overwhelming

environment. Long time ago, back before we had kids. So it was

like 40 years ago, Maryland and I went to Africa. That's a picture

from our trip. That's obviously hopefully me on the left.

Maybe I've aged just a little bit. We went with my brother and

his wife who are in the center. And that's his wife in the

blonde hair. And my brother probably standing on his toes behind

to look taller than me, which he's not. But he's competitive. And

that's Marilu, my wife in the black and white with some part pretty

amazing glasses, I have to say for the 1980s. So that's us in Africa

with some missionary friends who took us on a three week photo

safari of Africa. This was not going and staying in the big fancy

lodge. This was going into the bush, into the back country of Africa.

And it was the most amazing experience of our lives. I've traveled

the whole world. If I go back to one place, it's to Africa. I love

it. There's never seen anything like was kind of an overwhelming

trip. Mary Lou had never camped in her life. She'd never camped

out ever before. And the first time she goes camping is in Africa

for three weeks. That's a little overwhelming. When you go

to Africa, it just enormous when you get out away from the city

and you get out into the bush where the animals are first of all

at night. The stars are something else. You've never seen

anything like it. Never see anything like it. You know, in America

we have too much light pollution. You can't see the stars

that God's creating. But then we saw all kinds of animals. We saw

everything that there is, of course elephants and giraffes and.

And tons of zebra and wildebeests and lions and all kinds

of things. But you know what it was? I think it was Disney who

came up with that ad a number of years ago for Animal Kingdom.

Probably when you were younger they had this word sounded kind of

African, but it really wasn't. It says it is not a zoo. It is not

a zoo. It is not a zoo in Africa. It's the real thing. In fact,

one night we camped in a Little campgrounds area, not much

of campgrounds, just a little clearing. And there was another group

from us, from Germany, the youth group, and there were about

10 of them. And next day we were to go on across this big stretch

to the Ukavambu Swamp. And we couldn't. We headed out and our vehicle

just couldn't. All the roads were dirt, so this was like 1500

miles on dirt roads. And our vehicle couldn't make it. So we had

to go back and go around and it took us two days to get there.

They had vehicles that were four wheel drive and they got through

and they got into that camp late that night and they didn't have

time to set up a proper camp. And in the night one of the girls,

who was 17, just tossed and turned in her sleep, rolled with

one foot that came out of the tent and a lion came by and grabbed

her and took her across to an island in the river and sat there

and devoured her while the group screamed and hollered and there

was nothing they could do. It was a scary place. We would have

been with them if our car had gotten through. It didn't get through.

We heard about it later. So we're in this very overwhelming place

and we finally get to this Ukavambu swamp, which is really marvelous

in Botswana. And the Ukavambu swamp is this huge wetlands area.

And of course, with the water, all the animals come there and so

you can see everything that there is. But because of that, it

is really teeming with activity and tons of animals. Now,

in Africa, you don't see a lot of the animals in the daytime. You

see the animals at night. You see them early, early in the morning,

at dusk, and you hear them in the night because it's so hot, they

don't function much in the day. So we get to this Ukavambu swamp

and it's one of the places in Africa where you can see hippos.

Now the only problem with that is to see the hippos. They've got

these guys, there are probably four or five of them, these little

dugout canoes, literally primitive dugout canoes. And for

a few dollars, they will take you out into the swamp to see the

hippos. And they say, is it safe? Oh, yeah, it's safe. We don't

get turned over very often. But sometimes the hippos, which is

the most dangerous animal in Africa, you may not know that hippos

will attack. And of course, if they do, the crocodiles are going

to get you. If a Lion doesn't. I mean, if a elephant doesn't get

spooked and come at you, it's like, we're not going out there.

That's crazy. So after my brother got back from his trip in

the boat, he's nuts, Absolutely nuts. We were making our

camp. Now, at night, you make a camp, and the people experience

in Africa, they know when we make the camp, we bring all the tents

together, put the fire in the middle. We build fires around the

edge. And then they also take shovels. They put them in all the

corners. They put white trash bags on them that blow in the breeze

because they'll scare the animals away, because the hyenas

will come in and they'll go at you. And so we kind of got this camp

settled and it started to get dark and the stars were coming out.

When the stars come out, so do all the sounds. And you could begin

to hear lions roar in the distance, and you could begin to

hear the elephants pushing over trees. And you heard things.

You felt like they were everywhere. It was pretty overwhelming.

And all of a sudden, in the midst of that, we heard something.

It was far away at first. It was real quiet. And we could hear

the sound of singing from a village that wasn't very far away.

Amazing grace, there it is. And in the turmoil and in the fear

and the overwhelming of the whole environment, everything changed

when we heard that song. And we grabbed our flashlights and we

started to go closer to the camp and the village where these

people lived. And they were singing as we got into their fire.

And I've never seen people singing so warm and welcoming. Of

course, there's no electricity. There's no nothing.

But they had brought peace and joy to a place filled with fear and

turmoil. And that's what scattering seed is like. In the kingdom

of God, in a world full of fear and turmoil and overwhelming

and confusion and conflict, you can be that voice. You can be

that voice of peace that brings people to you. You maybe can't

sing. I can't either. I wish you could like these guys. But whatever

your voice is of peace. That's what the kingdom of God is like,

and that's what the scripture's trying to tell us here.

Secondly, we don't control spiritual growth in others. The scripture

says night and day, while he was asleep or awake, the seed sprouted

and grew. But he doesn't understand how it happens. The farmer

doesn't understand how it happens. See, Jesus intentionally

removes control of spiritual growth in others from us. Seeds grow

night and day without supervision. Often we can't notice

spiritual maturity. You can't rush formation. You can't engineer

revival. The kingdom grows because God is alive and active.

And he makes it grow in his time and in his way. And the most

important growth happening in you and the most important growth

in happening places where you're scattering the seed in others

is probably not going to be very visible. The character is forming,

convictions are deepening, roots are going down. Truth's becoming

internalized. Most transformations, seasons of life,

are often pretty quiet. It's kind of an underground growth before

it becomes noticeable. And that's what the kingdom growth is

like. Kingdom growth takes time, and we don't know how it happens.

But God is always growing seeds that are planted. If you scatter

seeds, God will honor it even when you don't have any control over

it. We had a student here a number of years ago, and he's gone

long, long, long enough. Now nobody knows him except me. And he

had troubles. He had big troubles, bless his heart. He came

here to play on an athletic team. I think he lasted on the team

about three weeks before he got kicked off for multiple behavioral

violations. He was having conflicts with everybody on campus.

Seemed like no matter where the trouble was, he was part of it.

Came from really tough background. I don't blame him. I

understand he was raised in an environment if you don't fight, you're

not going to make it okay, but that's hard. And so he felt a little

bit like a fish out of water here. A little bit. I don't know

exactly what was going on with him, but, you know, we tried to help.

And he wasn't responsive to any help or anything like that. And

one day in about late October in a fall semester, the people in

financial aid had to meet with him because the money he thought

he was getting in scholarship did not come through. And they told

it to him. They didn't probably tell it to him too well,

very bluntly. And he just exploded. He took a swing at the

admissions person. He tipped over chairs, he threw on tables.

He threw a disaster. People were trying to fight back or run

away. They didn't know what to do. And he was just absolutely out

of control. We tried to get it calmed down. It was a tough, tough

moment. And in the process of that, he wanted to talk to me, which

was great. And I talked to him. He said, I feel like everybody

here is out to get me. Everybody on this campus was out

to get me. And I told him, I said, they're not going to get you

I promise I will watch out for you, make sure you're okay. And so

I said, I'll give you my cell phone and you call me anytime you

feel threatened. And he did. He would call me at midnight. He'd

call me at 2 o' clock in the afternoon. I remember he called me

once at a basketball game. Somebody's looking really funny at

me. I really don't like it. I said, okay, okay, we'll help. And

the day he walked out of here at the end of that semester, well,

just kind of breathed a sigh of relief, said, oh, he's gone. I

don't have to worry about him anymore. I thought when he left,

I thought, he's never going to make it. There's no real hope or

nothing to hang onto there. There's nothing to build on. What

are we? There's nothing. Well, he left. He did friend me on Facebook

while he was here. And so I kind of kept up with him through

the years. And a few years later, I noticed he had a baby. And

a little bit after that he got married. And a little bit after that,

he started coaching a youth league and he started a little business.

He had another baby. He started posting pictures of his family.

And one day a picture came up on his Facebook and I just lost it

with tears of joy. There was this picture being baptized. God

was working in his life because seeds were planted even when

there was nothing we could do to help him grow. You see, God's

preparing the harvest for his time and in his way. And like the

farmer, we have no idea how night and day he lays asleep, seeds

sprout. He doesn't understand how it happened. I don't know how

it happened in his life, but I'm so thankful it happened and God

redeemed him. And God is using him because he's been in some hard

places that he can speak into people's lives. I never could. And

I'm so thankful, even though it was a hard time when he was here.

Well, the third thing we see from this scripture is that spiritual

growth is progressive. The earth produces a crops on its own.

First the leaf blade pushes through. Then the heads of the wheat

are formed and finally the grain ripens. You see, Jesus purposely,

there are stages of spiritual growth. The leaf comes up through

the ground and then the leaf blade, the stalk pushes through and

finally you get the wheat harvest. The kingdom life growth

is a progression. Well, in our culture, as I said earlier, we're

addicted to immediacy. We want it to happen right now. But kingdom

life grows Organically, not explosively. Depth takes time. In

God's time. We gotta trust God's design. We gotta trust God's

timing. Whether it's your growth or somebody else's growth

you're trying to influence in the seeds you're scattering. You

see, we may not see the dramatic change we wish. Like that

student years ago. I didn't see an ounce of change in him when

he was here. But eventually God got ahold of his life. So as

you're scattering seeds of love and joy and peace and kindness,

change may not happen tomorrow, but consistent obedience

compounds. And being consistent in your faith, God will

honor it. The stalk, the growing part of the plant may not

look very impressive, but without it, there is no harvest.

It has to have time to grow. And God does the growing well. The

fourth thing we see in the scripture is that the harvest is

certain. As soon as the grain is ready, the farmer comes and harvest

it with a sickle. For the harvest time has come, the kingdom

of God will reach completion. God will finish what he started.

He will finish it. Now. The parable holds two assurances. First

of all, we don't have to be in control. And secondly, the outcome

is certain because it's in God's control. The harvest will come

as soon as it is ready. Not early, not late. It will come right

on time. So what's our action plan for scattering seeds? Well,

be faithful in the small things. Scatter them every day. Don't

get discouraged in scattering. You don't have to see results. Our

job is to be like the farmer. Scatter the seeds. Secondly, trust

unseen. Growth maturity is seasonal. It happens in seasons and

sometimes there's a growth season. Right now we're in a no growing

season. Things don't grow up right now. You wait a few weeks and

everything's going to start to bloom and grow. There's seasons for

it. Be patient with yourself and be patient with other people.

Maturity just takes time. God's doing it in his way and his

time. And then just rest. Rest in the assurance of the harvest.

The harvest will come. The farmer sleeps. He's not anxious,

he's not overwhelmed. He's not wringing his hands. How do I get

the seed to grow? His job was to scatter it and then let God do

the growing. Now, there are two facts. If you feel tension about

you're not growing fast enough or the seed you're scattering is

not making any difference, there are two facts that will change

your life from a life of tension to relaxing in Christ, enjoying

it and growing in it, the first is, and I've told you this

one before, and I'll tell you this one often in chapel. There is

nothing in the world you can do to make God love you more. And

there's nothing in the world you can do to make God love you less.

That's an absolute. There is nothing zero you can do to make God

love you anymore. And there is nothing you can do that would make

God love you less. He may be heartbroken for you, but he doesn't

love you any less. So know that. Second is this. It's not your

responsibility or my responsibility to convict others

that they need to come to Jesus. That's the job of the Holy

Spirit. It's like taking, you know, the Holy Spirit's part of the

Trinity, of the Godhead, of God, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

It's like taking God's job away. No, it's not our job. The scripture

here is very clear. It is not our job. Our job is to scatter, to

be an example, to live a life of quality, to live a life that in

the fear and confusion, that you can sing Amazing Grace in your

spirit and people are drawn to you. That's our job. And when you

realize you don't have to bring them to Christ, you just have

to scatter the seed, then you can have joy and relax in the spirit

of what God's doing in your life. When. When you internalize

those two facts, I see too many Christians that are just all

bungled up about their faith. I got to get this right. I got to

get this right. I'm not doing it right. Whatever. And they're just

so worried. No, God loves you. And God's job is to convict others.

It's not your job. You know, on our campus, we've got some amazing

trees. People come up here to take wedding pictures among our trees.

Live oaks. If you're not from the south, they're called live oaks.

Those trees in the middle of campus were probably planted 10010

years ago. I planted one 25 years ago when it got taken out of

storm. But it was 25 years old when we brought it in here on a truck

and planted it in the ground. So it's probably 50 years old already.

But when those trees were barely planted and brand new, hardly

anybody noticed. Nobody admired, nobody came to take pictures.

Nobody said, wow, look at this place. It's a beautiful campus. They

probably looked at it and said, man, it's kind of a barren

place. Nobody applauded the early growth, and that's how the

kingdom of God works. What you may do may feel small, may feel unnoticed.

You wonder if your faithfulness even matters at all.

But every act of obedience plants something eternal. And it

will grow. So live faithfully today and trust God for the harvest.

Let's pray together. Our benediction. No eye has seen, no

ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for

those who love him. God bless. Have a good day.