Disclaimer:
Due to the large amount of sermons and topics that appear on this site I feel it is necessary to post this disclaimer on all sermons posted. These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit. While ideas and illustrations are often gleaned from many sources including those at Sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording including sermon title, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental. In instances where other minister’s wording is used, due recognition will be given. These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely. May God richly bless you as you read these words. It is my sincere desire that all who read them may be enriched. All scriptures quoted in these sermons are copies and quoted from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Pastor James May
THE SEED IS PLANTED, WHEN WILL THE HARVEST COME?
Mark 4:30-32, "And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it."
Before we can begin to reap, or even expect, a harvest is that the seed must first be planted. Planting of a seed can be used to describe many things in life, even in the formation of life itself. Without the seed nothing grows. But, if that seed is to grow there must be some outside forces reacting upon it to allow the natural course of events to continue.
ILLUSTRATION:
For our nation to be formed, there was a seed of liberty that arose in the hearts of men and women of the 13 colonies that were under the rule of King George of England.
From that seed there sprang a revolution that ended in a great victory for the cause of liberty and we still dwell in the branches of that growing tree today. Even though many of the outer branches have begun to wither and die as our freedoms are slowly eroded and removed, we still have freedom because of that seed that began as only an idea in the mind of a few men.
ILLUSTRATION:
A little over 75 years ago a little known American inventor, born of Russian descent named Vladimir Kosma Zworykin began to work for the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Over the next few years Mr. Zworykin became obsessed with the idea of inventing something that was called an iconoscope and succeeded in building it in 1923. Now the iconoscope was only half of what Mr Zworykin had dreamed of for he also began to work on an invention called a kinescope. The kinescope would eventually come to be known as the Cathode Ray Tube and in 1929, Mr. Zworykin revealed his great invention to whole world in a much publicized demonstration.
How many of you know what an iconoscope and a Cathode Ray Tube represent in our modern terminology? No many I imagine. And yet it is almost a sure thing that most of us will leave this service tonight and go to our homes. When we arrive at home one of the first things we will do is check out our iconoscope and kinescope that sits in our home – better known as our Television set. You see the iconoscope became the TV Camera for broadcasting and the Cathode Ray Tube became our TV Receiver. In 1932, Mr. Zworykin, working from a one inch square tube began to develop the color TV while working for RCA.
All of this came about because of the small seed of an idea in the mind of one man. Now, because of that idea, we all rest and watch “in the branches” of the “tree” that grew from that small mustard seed.
As you can see, from the small seed of an idea, great things can grow. And so it is with your faith in God and with the presence of the Kingdom of God within your heart.
Some of us have been in God’s Kingdom for a lot longer than others. The Tree of Faith that began as a spark in your spirit and a thought in your heart to surrender your life to Christ began as a very small thing, “a mustard seed” if you will.
It doesn’t take great faith to believe God for mighty miracles. It doesn’t take years of knowing Jesus, studying His Word and prayer to get to the place where you can see miracles performed in your life. It doesn’t take months of study, hours and hours of meditation upon the Word of God to see God move in your life and allow you to win souls to the Kingdom of God. All it takes is the “seed”, that smallest beginning of faith in God and you can see great and mighty things begin to come to pass.
Some of you have been saved only a few days, weeks or months and you grow discouraged because you don’t feel like you are growing in the Lord and you are still so weak and easily tempted.
Don’t allow Satan to lie to you and tell you that you can’t make it and that you will never be good enough. Let God help you and give Him time to help you grow up.
Just as you would never a expect a new-born baby to talk and walk like an adult, neither should you expect your spiritual life to be as victorious as that person who has lived for God for many years. We are all babies in God’s eyes. There is not one of us mature enough in Jesus to say that we don’t need to grow up.
A mother and father do not cast out their new born baby for wetting its diaper. They don’t get angry and disown that baby because it trips and falls as it is learning to walk or crawl. They are encouraging and are constantly lifting it up, learning to love that baby more each day because of the process of growing and taking care of its needs. Love only grows stronger with each passing day.
God’s love for each of you is much the same except that He loves you as much as He ever will, even before you are born and His love for you cannot be any stronger. Your love for Him will grow – every day you will learn to love Him more. Everyday you will grow a little more and your faith will increase a little more.
To make a point here, when do you think that any plant, animal or even human being is most vulnerable? When they are new-born and dependent on the help of everything around them.
That’s why it is so easy for “baby Christians” to be injured and fall away from God. They are at their most vulnerable time because they haven’t grown to the place where they understand and know God’s power to deliver and save them.
The Devil knows this and that’s why he does his best to destroy our faith while we are yet young in the Lord. Once we begin to really know Jesus and the Kingdom of God begins to grow in heart, we aren’t as susceptible to the attacks of the enemy of our soul.
I want you to know that if that “mustard seed” of faith that each of you have is not cared for and nurtured, it will die just as surely as a new-born baby will die if it is not fed, changed and cared for constantly. You must feed that faith through study of the Word of God, prayer and keeping a close watch out for anything that will come into your life that will injure your faith.
You have to give yourself time to grow in the Lord. Every day, little by little, trial by trial you will become stronger in the faith and your life will become more victorious in Christ.
Isaiah 28:9-10, "Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:"
Your growth and maturity in the Lord will not happen overnight. Just as it took as many years as you have been living to get to where you are now, it will take time, learning and hard work to be the “tree of faith” that God has already designed for you to become.
Many of you are praying for lost brothers, sisters, friends and other family members to be saved. You want them to come and rest in the branches of your faith. As your faith grows, other people will sit up and take notice. Other people will see your faithfulness, commitment, dedication and trust in your Lord. As they see that in you, then some of them will want to become a part of the Kingdom of God also.
The older and more mature you become in Christ and the closer your relationship with Jesus becomes, the more your life will act as a magnet that draws others to Christ.
Now, just so you will understand, maturing in the Lord and allowing your faith to grow in God and letting the Kingdom of God grow in your heart has nothing whatsoever to do with your chronological age. I have seen elderly people who have been in the church for many years and still don’t have a mature faith in God. If have seen younger Christians, who have totally committed their life to Jesus and spent time in God’s Word, and have become far more mature in the Lord than their elderly brothers and sisters. It has nothing to do with age as much as it does with how much time you spend alone with God and His Word.
Do you desire to see a greater number of people coming to Jesus because of the impact of your witness to them? Then get alone with God and allow His Kingdom to grow in you and make your faith into a “tree” where others can dwell.
ILLUSTRATION:
Amy Carmichael once penned these thoughts: Sometimes when we read the words of those who have been more than conquerors, we feel almost despondent. I feel that I shall never be like that. But they won through step by step by little bits of wills, little denials of self, little inward victories by faithfulness in very little things. They became what they are. No one sees these little hidden steps. They only see the accomplishment, but even so, those small steps were taken. There is no sudden triumph no spiritual maturity. That is the work of the moment.
quoted in Holy Sweat, Tim Hansel, 1987, Word Books Publisher, p. 130.
You see, none of us knows all of the struggles that it takes for someone who is strong in the Lord to get to that point. We only see the finished product. I don’t know if you look up to your Pastor as one of those who is strong in the Lord but it you do, remember this, he didn’t get to be a Pastor or a minister the day after, the week after or even the year after he was saved. It took time, maturing, growing, learning, studying and working with the leading of the Holy Spirit to get there.
If you are going to compare yourself to anyone to see if you are growing in the Lord or not, then compare yourself only with the person you were yesterday or a month ago, or a year ago.
Are you stronger today than you were then? Are you more mature in your knowledge of the Lord? Do you love Jesus more now than then? Do you know more about Jesus, about His Word, and about the moving and leading of the Holy Spirit in your life? Are you more sure of your salvation now than you were then? (it’s not that your salvation is any more assured, it’s only that you are more convinced of it)
If you can answer “yes” to any or all of these questions then your “seed of faith the size of a mustard seed” has already begun to grow.
ILLUSTRATION:
Human beings grow by striving, working, stretching; and in a sense, human nature needs problems more than solutions. Why are not all prayers answered magically and instantly? Why must every convert travel the same tedious path of spiritual discipline? Because persistent prayer, and fasting, and study, and meditation are designed primarily for our sakes, not for God’s. Kierkegaard said that Christians reminded him of schoolboys who want to look up the answers to their math problems in the back of the book rather than work them through...We yearn for shortcuts. But shortcuts usually lead away from growth, not toward it. Apply the principle directly to Job: what was the final result of the testing he went through? As Rabbi Abraham Heschel observed, "Faith like Job’s cannot be shaken because it is the result of having been shaken."
Philip Yancey, Disappointment With God, Zondervan, pp. 207-8.
ILLUSTRATION:
In The Last Days Newsletter, Leonard Ravenhill tells about a group of tourists visiting a picturesque village who walked by an old man sitting beside a fence. In a rather patronizing way, one tourist asked, "Were any great men born in this village?"
The old man replied, "Nope, only babies."
A frothy question brought a profound answer. There are no instant heroes--whether in this world or in the kingdom of God. Growth takes time, and as I Timothy 3:6 and 5:22 point out, even spiritual leadership must be earned.
William C. Shereos.
In closing, I want to encourage all of you in the Lord. Give God time to help you grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Don’t give up if you fail from time to time. Let it be a learning time. Get up, dust yourself off, and start walking again.
There will come a day when your faith will be strong. There will come a day when others will look to you as their earthly role models as mature Christians.
Let me close by reading to you the words of the Apostle Paul to the Church at Philippi found in Philippians 1:6, "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:"
God did not save you to allow you to be lost. You will have to make a decision to turn your back on God before God will turn His back on you. Even then He will try to reach out to you.
God’s will for your life is that you come to know Him as not only your Lord and Savior, but as your friend that stays closer than your own family members. God wants you to win worse than you do and He knows what it will take to make you victorious over Satan.
Give God time and hold on to your faith. Let your faith grown into a “giant tree” where others can come and sit in your faith in God and there begin to mature in Christ also.
