In this edition we are going to look at the power of the seed. I am going to explore the potential of the seed. I want you to look with me at Isaiah 55:11. We could call this ‘The Power of the Word.’ But we are going to call it ‘The Power of the Seed.’ When we look at Mark 4 it talks about the seed. We know by the interpretation of that parable that the seed is the Word. Many times we talk about God being active in our lives. We talk about God answering our prayers and doing things for us, and we believe that. We think God works out in the heavens from His throne. We think that He does everything sovereignly. No, God works in our hearts and through the things we sow in our hearts. He works through the seeds we put in our hearts. That seed is the Word of God. God works in our lives through the Word.
I taught a series in our church a few weeks ago about being led by the Holy Spirit. I said that the greatest way the Holy Spirit leads us is through his word. The Holy Spirit will never say anything to us inconsistent with what the Word says. In other words, He is not going to say something in the Bible and then say something entirely different to us in our hearts. The Bible tells us we are to try the spirits to see if they are of God. How do you try the spirits? You try the spirits by the Word. God works in his kingdom, through the vehicle of His Word. We are going to find out that the enemy attacks the Word. The reason the enemy attacks the Word is because the Word or the seed is full of power. How is the power of God released? It’s released through His Word. Even in creation, the Bible says, “God said let there be light and there was light.” Every time He spoke something came into existence. God used His Word as a vehicle of His creation. God uses His Word as a vehicle to bring the things in our lives that we need. If you don’t put the Word in there, you don’t give Him much to work with.
Have you ever noticed that in churches where they don’t teach healing that no one is ever healed? It’s churches where they talk about God’s healing power that people are healed. . If you don’t have the Word on the subject usually those things don’t happen. There are churches where no one is ever saved. You know why, because they don’t preach the gospel of salvation. There are churches where no one is ever blessed or prospered. You know why, because they don’t preach that message.
Isaiah 55:11 “(this is the Lord talking) “so shall my Word be that goeth forth out of my mouth and not return onto me void.” That word void means empty or ineffective. Let’s use the word empty and unproductive. “And not return to me empty or unproductive, but it will accomplish that which I please and prosper into wherein I send it.” A good example of that is found in John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Verse 14 says, “the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory.” The Word of God came into the earth in flesh form and his name was Jesus. God sent that Word who became flesh into the earth. Was it productive? Did Jesus accomplish anything when he was in the earth? Absolutely he purchased our salvation, he paid for our redemption. He suffered our penalty of death and hell and paid the price for physical healing and peace of mind and prosperity. He 9 the Word) paved the way for us. It was not void of power, it was not empty, and it was not unproductive. It was very productive! And God said “so shall my Word be that goes forth out of my mouth it shall not return onto me empty, void, unproductive but it shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper in the thing wherein I send it.”
God did not give His Word to us for it to be inactive in our lives. He gave His Word to us so that it could produce in us. What does it produces? It produces the Kingdom of God. Religion says we are just going to leave everything up to God. That’s not how God works. God has put it in our hands. He will work in your life but you are going to have to give Him permission”. In fact, He’s not going to save you if you don’’ give Him permission. When we say Jesus come into my heart, be my Lord and my Savior, we are giving God permission for His Word to work in our lives. He goes into our spirits and recreates it and makes us new creatures. He breaks the power of sin; and we are no longer slaves to sin. We become the righteousness of God in Him. God’s Word does a work in our lives. The Bible says that we are born again by the incorruptible seed of the Word of God.
God’s word is sent forth to produce. It’s not empty, void or powerless. Religion has taken all of the power out of the Word of God. The Bible tells us that in the last days there are going to be those who have a form of godliness but they deny the power thereof. Do you know what the power is? It’s the Word. Paul says in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.” When we say that this is not God’s Word we’re denying the power of the Kingdom. One thing I appreciate about the faith movement is that we believe in the integrity of the Word of God. We believe that the word is God breathed and that holy men of old spoke as the Holy Ghost moved them. This is recorded and written down and passed down through the generations. We have the Word of God, which is the very life and power of God. If we will partner with God and give Him permission to work in our lives, He’ll produce everything that is in this book on the inside of us. The greatest things that He produces are not the material blessings. It’s the work He does in our hearts. It’s the righteousness and all the fruit that goes with it. It produces a life in us that is God glorifying. That’s what it is all about.
The material part is like a side blessing. The real stuff is the character-building thing that takes place in the life of the believer as God works His power in us. People will look at your life and see how blessed you are and will want to know that God that you represent.
I Peter 1:23 “Being born again, not of the corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the Word of God which lives and abides forever.” Look at this again. This says it is not a corruptible Word. It is incorruptible. It is God inspired. It is God breathed. It is His will for us, and it is His Word to us. The Word of God is a living thing. Some say they read the bible but they don’t understand it. Maybe you need to know the author and then you will understand the book. It’s impossible to understand the book if you don’t know the author. This Word lives and abides forever. Jesus said that heaven and earth will pass away but my Word will never pass away. Do you know why? Because it is the power of God. It is the vehicle where the power of God is released.
That word seed is the Greek word sperma. That gives us a lot of insight to the nature of seed. It’s the sperma. It is the thing that brings conception and life to the situation. When the sperm and the egg meet, something happens. Conception takes place. That’s where life begins
The seed is the image of the harvest. The acorn has within it an oak tree. That little bitty acorn has all it needs to make an oak tree. When it falls upon the fertile ground all things being equal, it will produce a mighty oak. That’s a natural illustration. Can you imagine what the seed of the Word of God will produce on the inside of us! There is no limit to what we can be. If you will dare to sow that word on the good ground of your heart it will produce the image. It will produce in you everything that you will need to be or do to accomplish your task in life.
. Let’s look at the life of Jesus. In Luke 4:18 Jesus is quoting an Old Testament scripture. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach the gospel.” Paul said it in Romans 1:16 ‘I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation.) Notice here that Jesus says the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me. Did you know, that before the Holy Spirit anointed Jesus at his baptism, that He could not do miracles? But I thought He was God? Yes, He is God. The Bible says that He emptied Himself and He became a man. He was still God in the flesh, He was all man, and He was all God. He did not draw on the power He had as God. He emptied Himself of that. The Bible says that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature. As God, did Jesus need to grow in wisdom? No. As man He did need to grow in wisdom. Why, because He emptied Himself of that wisdom. There are times when He knew men’s hearts and the thoughts of their hearts. That happened after the Holy Spirit anointed him. He became a man just like you and I except without sin. He was just like Adam.
It says the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me, or enabled me. He had to be enabled by the Spirit to do the things that He did in this earth. He had to walk as a man. If He was going to walk as a man there were certain things He could not draw upon as God in the flesh. One of those things is the power of God. Another is omnipotence, or all knowing. He had to learn wisdom. He had to be anointed by the Spirit just like anybody else. So the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to set at liberty those who are oppressed. Do you know how he did that? He did that by the anointing of God, but that anointing of God was encapsulated in the gospel of God. The anointing is on the Word. If I tell you that God’s not good, there is no anointing in that because that’s not His Word. But if I say God so love the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. That has an anointing on it. Do you know what it does? It penetrates the hearts of men. It brings light to the hearts of men. Why, because the anointing or the ability of God is in the Word We see this in Jesus’ life. He’s anointed to preach the gospel and then he goes on to say, “He sent me to heal the brokenhearted to preach deliverance”. Notice it all comes around to preaching and teaching.
We need to expect that when we preach that things happen. It happens all the time. It’s amazing how you will come to church with a question and it will be answered during the course of the message. It’s the anointing of the Holy Spirit that’s on the Word of God. He said “Now the Spirit’s on me to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to set a liberty those who are oppressed.” Those are the things that the gospel is designed to produce.
In Luke 4:31 Jesus has just cast out an evil spirit. “Then he went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and was teaching them on the Sabbath. And they were astonished at his teaching, for his word was with authority.” He was teaching the Word of God. He was not teaching out of Reader’s Digest nor was he preaching the latest opinion poll. He was preaching the Word of God. It says it was with authority. In another place it says he was not like the Pharisees because his words were with authority. You know the Pharisees didn’t have authority? They were preaching the oral traditions more than the Word of God. We have a lot of oral traditions too. We get caught in a system of religion sometimes and we get more into the external and less into the internal
It’s not how you deliver it; it’s what you say. Jesus was different than the Pharisees because they weren’t preaching the Word. They were preaching the tradition. When you preach the Word it has power in it. It was the Word that had produced in his heart. He was just doing the things that he saw his Father do. He was just saying the things that he heard his Father say. Verse 36 says “So they were all amazed and spoke among themselves saying ‘what a word this is! With authority and power he commands the unclean spirit and they come out.’” When you preach the Word it has authority with it, it has power with it. It was so in the life of Jesus.
I Corinthians 4:20 “For the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power.” What that means is that the Kingdom of God is not in word only but it is in power. When you speak the words of God they have power.
Paul says in Romans 1:16 “For I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to Salvation. For everyone who believes: for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written: the just shall live by faith.” He says that the gospel of God is the power of God leading to salvation. That word salvation is the Greek word soteria. It doesn’t just mean the forgiveness of sin. It means to be made whole in every aspect of your life. It means deliverance, soundness, and wholeness of mind. It’s an all-inclusive word
Sometimes we pray when we don’t need to pray. Sometimes we pray before its time to pray. If God works through His Word, what good does it do to pray when we don’t have a promise to base our pray on?. You’re just telling God your need. God is not moved by your need. He is moved by faith. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. If God moved by need, there would not be any hungry babies in foreign countries. There would not be people starving to death in foreign countries. If God saw the need and met the need then you wouldn’t have that. God is moved by faith. The bible says “the power of God unto salvation is revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by faith.” It’s faith that causes God to be active in our lives. It’s our trust in Him.
In Romans 16:24 “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen. Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret from when the world began.” Notice that he said the Gospel was able establish you. How are you going to become an established Christian? It’s through the gospel. Let me say it this way, just coming to church will not cause you to be established. Working in the church will not cause you to be established. Doing good deeds will not cause you to be established it is the gospel that will cause you to be established. You can become so established that you can be unshakeable. It said that He would be able to establish you through His Gospel. Where is the Kingdom of God? It is in you. If you are born again, the Kingdom of God is in you. Do you know where He is going to establish you? He is going to establish you in your heart. Religion does it from the outside.
Do you need power in your life? Plant the seed of the word of the Word in your. It will produce life. It will produce more than you could ever think or imagine. EPH 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,
David Insell
Believers Community Church
3645 N St Louis St
Batesville Ar 72501
