WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 My preach in the next four minutes. Now I can do. 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:06.000 I can do eight minutes. 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:11.000 Is this the power of a seed? Now, Jesus, think every as I'm preaching now, 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:16.000 please think on when God spoke a word to me 14 years ago. 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:21.000 Think of words God has spoken of this church, the power of a seed. 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:23.000 And think what's coming. 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:28.000 Ephesians 3:20. Paul writes, now all glory to God. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:33.000 This is, by the way, is my verse for our church going forward into this new season. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:38.000 It's the word God gave me. Now all glory to God, who is able, 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:43.000 through his mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:47.000 than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:51.000 and in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever. 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:56.000 We're going to be a multicultural, multi generational church 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:00.000 able to influence the city to the glory of our God. 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:04.000 Would you agree that this king we talk about here, 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:07.000 glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus. 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:10.000 He had a way of saying surprising things. 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:15.000 Who would have thought that the kingdom of God is like an ordinary tiny seed? 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.000 When Jesus comes and says the kingdom of God is like a seed, 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:23.000 he might as well have said, it's like a can of Coke. It's like, Sorry. 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:28.000 He was correcting the mistaken impressions people had about the nature of God 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:30.000 and his kingdom. 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:34.000 And even today people struggle with the nature of God 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:36.000 and the nature of God's kingdom. 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:39.000 And Jesus used parables like this. Mark 4:26. 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:44.000 The kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:47.000 night and day while he's asleep or awake. 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:52.000 The seed sprouts and grows, but he doesn't understand how it happens. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:55.000 The earth produces the crops on its own. 00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:58.000 First a leaf blade pushes through. 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:02.000 Then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens. 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:06.000 And as soon as the grain is ready, the farmer comes and harvests it 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:09.000 with a sickle, for harvest time has come. 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:13.000 Now, this is not the parable of the sower, 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:16.000 where God the farmer is specifically putting seeds. 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:20.000 Now he's saying, you and I are like farmers. We take seed. 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:23.000 Seed is given us from God. Word, quiet time. 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:25.000 Preach a book. 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:29.000 Somewhere a word is coming and you just sow it. 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:31.000 You just throw it out there. 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:35.000 And what tends to happen is you're like just tossing it. 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:38.000 And what you don't understand is that it starts to grow. 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:42.000 It's like throwing an old tomato thing out and you come back 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:44.000 and suddenly there's a tomato plant. 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:49.000 We've got birds, right? So we give them those black, what they call baby sunflower. 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:52.000 Seeds, we give them sometimes some. 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:55.000 Some sunflower seeds and every now and then we throw them in the garden. 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:58.000 Just taken out our most recent this high. 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:01.000 Sunflowers. Rather plant sunflowers. 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:03.000 Don't even want them. 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:06.000 Just find a place to throw my seeds. But the soil was right. 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:10.000 And the point, as I said to you last week, when your soil is good, 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:14.000 when God starts to get gives you seed, it takes root in the good soil. 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:18.000 And so last week I wanted to talk to you about good soil being your heart. 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:22.000 This morning I want to talk about the power of the seed that you can hold on to. 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:26.000 What can that seed do? And so Jesus used this image of a seed that's thrown. 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:30.000 And whether the farmer understands it or not, something begins to happen. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:35.000 He's trying to say to us that the word, the logos of the kingdom 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:38.000 has a power and life of its own. 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:41.000 In fact, the farmer doesn't cultivate it. 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:44.000 He doesn't even know how it works. All he does is throw it in. 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:47.000 Jesus puts it like this, mark 4, 30. 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:50.000 How can I describe the kingdom of God? 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:53.000 What story should I use to illustrate it? 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:57.000 It's like a mustard seed planted in the ground. 00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:02.000 It's the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of all the garden plants 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:06.000 that's in that area. It grows long branches 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:09.000 and birds can make nests in its shade. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:14.000 Jesus was saying, a very small seed takes root, grows into a large bush, 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:19.000 and things take residence in it and can rest within it 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:22.000 because something's happening with the seed. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:26.000 In Luke's account, Jesus uses follows the mustard seed parable. 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:28.000 Another story. 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:32.000 Luke 13:20. Jesus asked, what else is the kingdom of God like? 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:36.000 It's like the yeast a woman used in making bread. 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:40.000 Even though she only put a little yeast in three measures of flour, 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:43.000 it permeated every part of the dough. 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:46.000 Now, I know stuff all about making bread. 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:48.000 I buy it at spa. 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:53.000 But apparently yeast gets kneaded into dough and it works unseen 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:56.000 until the dough has life in it. 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:59.000 And I had to Google it. This is what Google says. 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:04.000 Yeast and dough work together through a process called fermentation, 00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:08.000 where yeast consumes sugars in the dough, producing carbon dioxide gas 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:13.000 that causes the dough to rise, creating the characteristic flavors and aromas of bread. 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:15.000 I'm sure all the girls knew that. 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:20.000 Point is this. Get some dough, chuck some yeast in, it grows and takes over. 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:25.000 What's the point? The kingdom of God is a kind of life that keeps growing 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:27.000 like a mustard seed. 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:32.000 And like leaven, the kingdom of God grows beyond what we call the church. 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:36.000 Because what we call church is people like now meeting on Sunday. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:39.000 Hey, I'm coming to church. We're coming to the building. 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:41.000 Church is who we are. 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:44.000 The church isn't the kingdom of God. Are you good with that? 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:47.000 The kingdom of God is separate. The church is the ecclesia. 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:52.000 It is the gathered men and women and children of God together being a family. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:55.000 The kingdom is not the church. 00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:59.000 The church is the manifestation of the kingdom, where God is at work. 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:04.000 But can I tell you, the kingdom of God is at work in other areas of life too. 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:09.000 Business, science, sport, social care, politics, the arts. 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:12.000 He's as busy there as he is in the church. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:16.000 Wherever you and I go, the kingdom advances. Are you alright? 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:20.000 And so the point was, he wants to show us that the kingdom works like a seed. 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:25.000 And point number two, and I'll close with this, it is a very powerful and mighty seed. 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:27.000 Seeds are wonderful things. 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:31.000 A seed is a little dry thing, no bigger than your fingernail. 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:35.000 You put that thing in the ground and soon the plant springs out of the earth. 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:40.000 You water it, you fertilize it, and after a while something emerges out of that seed 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:42.000 that doesn't look like a seed. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:45.000 The seed is a power to organize reality. 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:47.000 Think about that for a moment. 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:52.000 When that seed is put in the ground, God has engineered that seed in a way 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:56.000 that what comes out of that seed is massive potential. 00:06:56.000 --> 00:07:01.000 And all the ability and fruitfulness and future fruitfulness of that plant 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:03.000 is in that seed. 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:06.000 But the seed looks nothing like the plant. 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:10.000 The power contained within it cracks the shell of the seed, 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:12.000 puts out the little roots. 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:15.000 And we all know that things start to happen. 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:19.000 That's why the Logos is portrayed by Jesus as a seed. 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:22.000 It is spiritual power to organize reality. 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:27.000 When you wait on God, when you need a word from God, when you seeking God. 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:29.000 God wants to plant seeds. 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:34.000 And within that seed is the potential of what a future can look like 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:36.000 and who can receive it. 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:38.000 Any old farmer. 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:42.000 As long as your soil is good, whatever word gives, whatever word God gives, 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:45.000 don't you just want to throw it in the good soil? 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:49.000 And when you throw it in the good soil, you don't stand there and fast and pride. 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:54.000 It says that even though the farmer tosses it into the soil, 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:58.000 whether he's asleep or awake, he doesn't even know it has power of its own. 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:03.000 The promises, the words that God gives you, the Logos, 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:08.000 the actual scripture God gives you, it contains a power of its own. 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:11.000 Jesus refers to himself as the seed of Abraham. 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:15.000 Genesis 3:16. God gave the promises to Abraham etc. 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:17.000 Abraham was a man of faith. 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:20.000 He propagated after his own kind. 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:23.000 That's why we are children of Abraham, aren't we? 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:25.000 Because Abraham was a father of faith. 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:30.000 And every follower, true follower of Abraham down through the generations 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:33.000 has become a man or woman of faith. 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:37.000 He has propagated faith as a seed inside you and I. 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:42.000 Jesus, in a sense, was a seed because when he died and rose from the dead, 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:47.000 and even at his birth, when the seed of the Holy Spirit was put into Mary, 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:52.000 the seed, the potential was there for the Savior of the world to come into being. 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:55.000 And then Jesus died as a seed and rose again. 00:08:55.000 --> 00:09:00.000 And you and I, every time someone's born again, you die and you rise again 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:05.000 and a new seed is planted from which the kingdom of God can grow, 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:07.000 from which the kingdom of God can benefit. 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:12.000 You have no idea the potential of God wrapped up in every single believer. 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:17.000 And, and Jesus, my last point is he sends the seed into the soil of our hearts. 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:22.000 The seed comes alive, it begins doing what God wanted it to do. 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:25.000 And I want to close with this scripture for this morning. 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:30.000 When God speaks or plants a seed into your life that came from him 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:35.000 and the soil is good and you agree with him, a harvest is guaranteed. 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:38.000 Isaiah 55, verse 8. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:42.000 My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:46.000 And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:50.000 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:55.000 so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. 00:09:55.000 --> 00:10:00.000 The rain and the snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:02.000 to water the earth. 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:07.000 They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:09.000 and bread for the hungry. 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:12.000 It's the same with my word, my Logos. 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:16.000 I send it out and it always produces fruit. 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:21.000 It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper wherever I send it. 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:23.000 I close with these words. 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:27.000 C.S. lewis, in the book Mere Christianity, wrote these words. 00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:31.000 Good and evil both increase at compound interest. 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:36.000 That is why the little decisions you and I make every day 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:38.000 are of such infinite importance. 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:43.000 The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:48.000 from which a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:51.000 you never, ever dreamed of. 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:55.000 And I want to say to you this morning, God is planting seeds of faith. 00:10:55.000 --> 00:11:00.000 He deposits seeds of promises in you, me, in us, for the future, 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:03.000 but even for your individual life. 00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:08.000 And God says the words I give you, I look after it, to perform, 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:11.000 will accomplish exactly what I want for it. 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:16.000 Friends, we are going into an incredibly fruitful prayer answering season 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:19.000 hold on to the seeds he gives you. 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:23.000 Let them grow in your heart and reap a harvest for the kingdom of God. 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:25.000 Stand with me, please. 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:28.000 Thank you so much for being a part of our meeting today. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:30.000 Can I just ask two things? 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:35.000 The first is if today the message is in any way been useful to you, 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:40.000 would you mind just maybe liking it or putting perhaps a statement down 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:44.000 or a comment down that we can know how the ministry has helped you, 00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:48.000 Maybe a thumbs up, maybe you can subscribe to the channel, 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:53.000 do whatever, just so we can know what impact this message may be having on you. 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:57.000 And secondly, you may be someone who's saying, greg, I hear you. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:02.000 And this hope that Jesus has for us can come into my heart and it can change me. 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:06.000 But the reality is that I don't even know if I know Jesus. 00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:09.000 I want to say two things to you right away. 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:12.000 The first is he's near you right now. 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:16.000 The Bible says if you believe in your heart that he is the Lord, 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:20.000 and if you confess him with your mouth, you will be saved. 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:23.000 Which means you just need to where you are. 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:27.000 Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ even now and just say, lord, here I am. 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:30.000 I recognize who you are, confess my sin to you. 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:35.000 I acknowledge you as Jesus Christ, the Lord of all, the Son of the living God. 00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:37.000 And I want to follow you. 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:39.000 I want to become a disciple of yours. 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:42.000 I want to, I want to give my life to you, Lord. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:46.000 And you can pray that prayer right now between you and the Lord. 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:49.000 Secondly, you can get hold of us. 00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:51.000 You can see the telephone number. 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:55.000 You can get hold of us and say, hey, I've given my life to the Lord. 00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:57.000 Can you help me from here on out? 00:12:57.000 --> 00:13:00.000 And we could either send you some material, 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:03.000 we can put you in touch with a really good church near you. 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:07.000 If you live in our area, you can come to us, you can follow us on YouTube. 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:11.000 But it is good to get connected into the family of God, 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:16.000 to get connected into a local church that your life changes 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:18.000 being surrounded with the family of God. 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:21.000 Please stay in touch. God bless you.