Farmville
Life on the Farm – Part 1
I. Introduction
Unless you have spent some time on Facebook you are probably asking, “What is Farmville?” I am glad you asked! Farmville is a real-time farm simulation game. The game allows members of Facebook to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops, trees, and livestock. Since its launch in June 2009, Farmville has become the most popular game application on Facebook, with over 75.2 million active users and over 18.1 million fans as of January 2010.
Do we have any farmers in the house? Just think while you are sitting in this service this morning your crops are growing or dying! Urban people, many of whom have never stepped foot on a farm or stepped in anything produced at a farm are virtually running their own spread! They are getting a little peek, although a painless and risk free one, of what it is to be involved in the agricultural industry, lifestyle, and market. They are living life on the farm!
I believe that Jesus would have been a fan of Farmville! Now, notice I didn’t say He would waste His life playing it all day! Why do I think He would have been a fan? Because, He understood the world of agriculture! He was surrounded by farming. If you study the culture of Galilee it is easy to discover that agriculture was the major industry of that time and place. Everywhere Jesus went He encountered farms and farmers as they grew and depended on figs, olives, and grains. So, it is no major surprise that in order to effectively communicate, Jesus developed much of the content of His teachings around agriculture themes! In fact, if you go back and look through His teachings, especially the parables, you see the Farmville theme running like a thread throughout each story. All in all He told 9 agriculture parables.
1. The "Fig Tree"
2. "Picking Grain on the Sabbath"
3. The "Mustard Seed"
4. The "Sower"
5. The "Tennants in the Vineyard"
6. The "Vine and the Branches"
7. The "Weeds in the Wheat"
8. The "Workers in the Vineyard"
9. The "Yeast"
I would submit to you this morning that even if you have never even driven past a real farm or you have never logged into a virtual farm these agricultural teachings still have profound application for you! I don’t have time to deal with them all, so I would like to focus in on the one parable that I think was Jesus’ greatest agricultural teaching. Although this parable deals specifically with how a person responds to spiritual truth this teaching has so many implications for every area of our lives. It addresses our home life, our relationships, our finances, our work ethic, and our spiritual walk. It is wide in its scope and deep in its reach into the fabric of our lives. You have heard this story since you were a child. Let’s hear it again as if it were the first time, so that we can use it as the backdrop against which we can learn old truths again!
Text: Matthew 13:1-8; 18-23; John 12:24
1-3 At about that same time Jesus left the house and sat on the beach. In no time at all a crowd gathered along the shoreline, forcing him to get into a boat. Using the boat as a pulpit, he addressed his congregation, telling stories.
3-8"What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn't put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.
18-19"Study this story of the farmer planting seed. When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn't take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person's heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road.
20-21"The seed cast in the gravel—this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it.
22"The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it.
23"The seed cast on good earth is the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams."
The parable of the “Sower”! Over the course of the next few weeks I want us to look at the truths this farm scene teaches us.
II. Farm Laws
The parable of the “Sower” can basically be broken down into three elements. It addresses sowing, reaping and soil. So let’s take a walk to the farm and learn some farm laws!
a. You cannot escape the laws of the farm!
One of the options in Facebook is that you can block certain applications. When you start to receive tree requests, tractor requests, get a life requests (LOL) you can block those and move on. However, it's a sobering thought that you cannot operate outside the law of sowing and reaping! Seedtime and harvest affects everyone.
Even the ungodly who are not a part of God's kingdom operate within the confines of seedtime and harvest. You cannot escape this natural and supernatural law. We are all living in Farmville!
b. Seed limits limit harvest!
You may not control timing (and we will talk more about that during this series) of harvest, but you do control the amount of harvest.
The Bible very clearly teaches us in 2 Corinthians 9:6 that “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”
In the Message it says it this way, “6-7Remember: A stingy planter gets a stingy crop; a lavish planter gets a lavish crop. I want each of you to take plenty of time to think it over, and make up your own mind what you will give. That will protect you against sob stories and arm-twisting. God loves it when the giver delights in the giving.”
Some of us limit our harvest by limiting our planting. We think that the concept of limited sowing only relates to money. We think that when we are told that God delights in a cheerful giver that He only sits up and takes notice when we dig into our pockets during offering time. I will tell you that He does take notice, but this principle applies to every area of our life.
We limit our harvest in relationships by how we sow into them! When we won’t allow anyone to get to close and we hold them at a distance. When we build up walls and barriers and defense mechanism we limit our harvest.
We do this at work when we only do what is expected. When we don’t go the extra mile, then we limit the harvest of promotion, testimony, and favor.
And of course we do this in our giving. We tightly clench our fist around our finances and then expect God to open the windows of heaven and we are bewildered by the drought!
God loves a cheerful giver. Think about that in terms of your relationships, work, finances. God loves it when you give yourself away cheerfully to friends. He responds when we cheerfully represent him to our employers. He loves it when we dig deep into our pockets so that He can fill them from His.
I want to tell you very bluntly . . . stinginess makes life on the farm hard! This isn’t so much about quantity of seed as it is the attitude towards the seed. You may only have a little to sow, but it is your willingness to sow that determines the amount of your harvest. The seed you sow is a photograph of your faith! If you are unwillingly or hesitant to sow then it reveals that you don’t really trust God!
c. The harvest is your fault!
I think this is one of the most forgotten farm laws. It is also one of my least favorite because it makes me take personal responsibility for the outcome! Here it is . . . What you sow you reap! In other words, the harvest is your fault – good or bad. We actually believe that we are excused or immune to this law. Therefore, we can do anything, say anything, act any way we want and never stop to think about what the harvest will be when it is all over!
Galatians 6:7-8
7-8Don't be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he'll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God's Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
You control what is harvested – what you sow you reap. Seed produces like kind. Have you ever planted a tomato seed and to your amazement corn grew instead? You get what you plant!
We need to wake up to this law in our lives. We sow things in our lives and then we act like the guy on the basketball court who just about killed a guy and then throws his arms up as if to say, “What did I do!”
You can’t sow anger and reap peace. You can’t sow snarky words and get soft answers in return! You can’t sow hate and reap love. You can’t sow laziness and reap reward/promotion. We are all in the sowing business and we are also in the reaping business. We can assess what you are sowing by what you are reaping! Like always produces like! So, if you are in constant struggle financially, then we can guess how you are handling your seed. If you are constantly surrounded by drama and turmoil, then I can assess what you are sowing. Your crop reveals what you planted!
If everywhere you go people end up angry, mad, and fighting maybe the common denominator is the seed you are sowing. If no one likes you maybe the common denominator is the seed you are sowing. If you can’t ever seem to get a promotion even though you have tried a dozen different jobs, then maybe it is the seed you are sowing. You harvest won’t change until your seed does! It may be time for a seed check!
Don’t complain about your harvest unless you are ready to deal with your seed.
Come on, say it with me . . . My harvest is my fault!
d. Don’t fight the fertilizer!
John 12:24
24"Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.
Ever feel like your seed is buried? Covered over and literally dumped on with fertilizer? Seed grows better when covered by fertilizer. I have been there. Our natural instinct is to fight the fertilizer. Fertilizer is our friend! We need to join the fertilizer fanclub! If it wasn’t for fertilizer you wouldn’t grow!
I just wanted to encourage you not to fight the fertilizer. It stinks. It smells. It is nasty. Uncomfortable! But the fertilizer doesn’t inhibit growth it forces and assists in growth.
The painful areas of your life are not wasted, they are fertilizer! See it for what it is! All that sssstufff you are going through, have gone through and will go through is simply helping your seed mature and multiple! The seed would be wasted and left exposed to birds, weeds, sun if it wasn’t buried!
Don’t fight the fertilizer, but you do need to recognize the fertilizer will fight you – resistance is necessary for growth – chicken has to fight its way out of the egg – seed has to fight its way out of the soil! You need resistance – you need someone to sit you down for a while when you would rather have the mic and the spotlight. You need someone to keep you from following your dream for a while because if you reached it now you would waste it. You need someone to hold you accountable! You need someone to ask you hard questions! An unresisted life is a shallow life! It is called resistance training . . . without resistance you don’t grow. Resistance produces growth and strength. So breathe deep!!!! That smell you smell is the smell of growth!
III. Close
So what does this mean for me? It means you have to examine your own life and determine if you are trying to live outside of the laws of the farm. If so, you need to recognize that this isn’t possible. There are laws and principles at work that you cannot escape or ignore. They govern our lives.
Some of you need to get rid of a stingy spirit in relationships, at work, and in giving of your time, talents, and treasures!
Some of you need see your harvest slapping you in the face because it is revealing what you have been sowing. What are you reaping? What are you sowing? For some of you . . . your seed needs to change this morning.
Many of us just need to embrace the fertilizer. Quit fighting it. Quit avoiding it. Quit turning your nose up at it! It is necessary for growth!
