Rick Warren - God’s Law 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... 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 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 God 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 wealth 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, request,

it's the greatest one. And because you asked the right thing,

I'm going to give you everything else. I'm going to

give you power and I'm going to 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. If you'll

look at your outlines, the first verse on the And

in 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 going to

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. You know,

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 a 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, the birds eat and

some of it lands on rock and some of it

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 talent, 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 1,

Genesis 1:11

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 whales or anything else. And in fact, the

largest living thing on the planet is 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

been through, I've 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. They're tiny. 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. Hi, everybody. Today, I want to ask you

to join with Daily Hope as we focus on fulfilling

the great commission of Jesus Christ. That's where Jesus said,

go and make disciples of all nations, baptize them in

the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

and teach them to do everything I've commanded you. And

surely I'm with you to the very end of the age.

You know, sharing Jesus with others is the most important

thing you can do while you're alive because you're helping

people determine their destiny. If we join together, we can

reach across the whole world with the message of Christ.

And that's why I'm asking new friends to partner with

Daily Hope. You see, by becoming a partner in hope,

we're able to take the good news of Jesus into

almost every country of the world, including regions where where

it's difficult or even dangerous to share the good news

of the gospel. So I want to invite you to

join us. Become a partner in Hope. Today, with your

first monthly donation, we'll send you a special gift to

welcome you as a partner of the Hope family. God

bless you. When I started Saddleback with Kay, you know,

30 years ago, One of the verses that I held

on to is this verse that's on the screen, Job 8,

Job 8:7

verse 7, 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.

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 going to play it safe.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I'm not going to 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 got to put it in the ground.

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

no deposit, no return. You got to 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 is 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. What do you do?

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

gonna 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 gonna plant a seed and the seed

is gonna 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 because nothing happens

till the seed is planted. And here's the third law

of sowing and reaping. Whatever I sow is what I

will reap. Whatever I sow, whatever I put in the

ground is what I'm going to reap. This is the

law of reproduction. Now, if a farmer goes out and

he's got a trailer load of beans, red beans, kidney beans,

lima beans, whatever, and he goes out and he starts

planting beans in a barren field, what does he expect

to bear fruit? Watermelon? No. If he's planting beans, is

he gonna get cucumbers? No. Is he gonna get candy canes? No.

Is he gonna get horses? No. He's gonna get beans.

Whatever you plant is what you're going to get back.

He doesn't doubt it. He doesn't question it. He knows

whatever I sow, I'm gonna reap. Now this applies to

every single area of your life, but especially in your finances.

There's a phrase that is repeated over and over in

the book of Genesis. And it is the phrase where

God says, each is to reproduce after its own kind.

In other words, Tomato plants have tomatoes, not potatoes. Apple

trees bear apples, not pears. You're never gonna go see

corn growing on a grapevine. Cows produce baby cows and

chickens produce baby chickens and human beings produce baby human

beings because in God's economy, we reproduce after our own

kind and we reap in the same kind as we sow.

Now this can work either positively or negatively in your life.

It can be for you or it can work against you.

Whatever you sow in life, you're gonna reap. Galatians 6,

7 says this. Do not deceive yourself. In other words,

don't kid yourself. No one makes a fool of God.

You will reap exactly what you plant in life. As again,

as I said, that can be either positive or negative,

work for you or against you in your life. He's

saying here that whatever I dish out in life is

what I'm gonna get back. What goes around comes around.

And if I'm out planting seeds of kindness to other people,

you know what? People are gonna be kind to me.

And if I go out and I show grace and

mercy and I cut people some slack, people are gonna

show grace and mercy and cut me some slack. If

I go out and I'm forgiving of others, people are

gonna be forgiving of me. If I'm generous with other people,

people are going to be generous with me. Whatever you sow,

you're going to reap. But the opposite is true too

in a negative sense. If I go out and I'm

angry all the time, you know what I'm going to

get back? Anger from other people. I'm angry, I'm going

to make them angry at me. If I'm critical, then

people are gonna criticize me. If I'm judgmental, people are

gonna judge me. If I cheat other people, people are

going to cheat me. If I gossip about other people,

guess what? People are gonna gossip about you. Let me

just give you a little hint. Anybody who will talk

to you about somebody else who talks to you will

talk about you. Count on it because they're indiscriminate. The

Bible says gossip is a very evil thing and that

it has negative consequences. And the Bible says that what

you sow, you reap. If you're always talking about somebody

else behind their back, you can count on it. People

are talking about you behind your back. It is the

law of the universe. What you sow... you will reap.

Now again, it works negatively or positively. Let me show

you a couple of negative ones here on the screen.

Proverbs 26, 27 says, he who digs a pit, in

other words, to hurt somebody else, will fall into it himself.

He who rolls a stone will have it roll back

on him. What goes around comes around. What you give out,

you're gonna get back. Let me give you another one.

Hosea 10, 13, you planted wickedness and now you have

reaped evil. Now, what we wanna do is we wanna

plant one thing and reap something else. It doesn't happen.

Whatever you put out is what you're gonna get back.

This is true all through the scripture. There's a story

of Jacob. Jacob was a cheat. And one of the

first things we find is he's cheating his brother and

his father, deceiving both of them in order to get

the family blessing. And you know what happens later on

in life? Jacob's father-in-law cheats him. of his own wife.

What goes around comes around. There's a story in the

book of Esther. There's a guy named Haman. Haman was

an anti-Semite. He hated Jews. And he wanted all the

Jews in Persia killed. And he particularly hated a guy

named Mordecai. And so he had these gallows built to

have Mordecai hung on. And as things turned out, you

know who got hung on his own gallows? Haman. That

happens all the time. You sow a thought, you reap

an act. You sow an act, you reap a habit.

You sow a habit, you reap a character. You sow

your character, you reap a destiny. Whatever you give out,

you're gonna get back. I have, you know, I train

leaders and I have guys ask me, business leaders, church leaders,

government leaders say, Rick, how do I get people to

trust me? Because trust is what leadership's all about. People

don't trust you, they don't follow you. You say, how

do I get people to trust me? Well, it's real simple.

You trust them. It's not rocket science. If you trust people,

you know what? They're gonna trust you. That guy's got

good sense. I mean, he certainly is smart enough to

trust me. So he's worthy of being trusted himself. If

you trust other people, you know what? People are gonna

trust you. Parents, how do I get my kids to

trust me? Simple, trust them. You ever trust your kids?

The more trust you put in your kids, the more

they are gonna trust you. Whatever you give out, you're

gonna get back. It's true in every single area of life.

You say, how do I get people to like me?

Real simple, like them. If you like other people, people

are gonna generally like you. You know, I genuinely like people.

I like hanging out on the patio. I like talking

to people. And as a result, I have a lot

of people who like me. Not everybody. But if you

like people, guess what? They're gonna like you. Because whatever

you give out, that's what you're gonna get back. Now

here's the fourth principle. Everything starts as a seed. Nothing

happens until a seed is planted. Whatever I sow is

what I'm going to reap. This one's going to surprise you.

I'm not the only sower. I am not the only sower.

What that means is you are reaping both good and

bad from what other people are sowing around you. There

are people who are beside you. There are people who

are in your family. There are people who came before you.

There are parents and grandparents and on and on. And

they have been sowing. And now, in many ways, you

are reaping what the previous generation experienced. For instance, you

enjoy many things that you didn't pay for, you didn't

work for. You enjoy the freedom of America, and you

didn't have to pay for it. Other people died in

many wars over the last 250 years to preserve your freedom.

You enjoy it. They sowed with their own lives and

you reaped the freedom. You drove to church today on

a road you didn't pave, in a car you didn't design,

with gas you didn't get out of the oil yourself.

Somebody else sowed energy today. time, creativity, invention, ideas. They

sowed all those. And so there are many things in

life that you get to benefit from that are the

result of other people's sowing and you reaping it. Now,

it's also true in the opposite way. You have been

hurt by what other people have sowed around you. Some

of you grew up in families where there was a

history of multiple generations of Abuse. And you look at the,

there was abuse, abuse, abuse, abuse, abuse. You need to say,

all right, it's stopping here. I'm breaking the chain. I'm

breaking the chain. It's not going any farther. Some of

you grew up in families where there was over multi-generations

a history of alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, and you need

to say, okay, hang on, time on. This is it,

time out. We're stopping this right here. The chain is

being broken. I'm not passing it on to the next generation.

Some of you grew up where it was bigotry, bigotry, bigotry, bigotry.

Some of you grew up in homes where over the

past multiple generations, it was divorce, divorce, divorce, divorce. And

you go, okay, hang on. I can't control the past,

but I'm stopping it right now. I'm starting a new legacy.

What I'm saying is everything you do has consequences. Everything

you do has consequences. Not just for you, not just

for your peers, not just for your partners. but for

the next generation.