Sown Any Good Seed Lately?

SOWN ANY GOOD SEED LATELY

HOSEA 10:12

Introduction: Every day seeds in our lives, church and community are being sown. Some of these seeds are bad; some are good. Through the prophet Hosea, God said that it is time for us to start sowing good seeds that will be honoring to Him. There are four universal principles to sowing: 1. What you sow you reap, 2. Never sow mixed seeds, 3 You can’t reap if you don’t sow, and 4. Reaping is proportionate to what you sow.

I. What you sow you reap.

A. Galatians 6:7-8 “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”

B. Madame Chiang Kai-shek once said, "If the past has taught us anything it is that every cause brings its effect, every action has a consequence. We Chinese have a saying: "If a man plants melons he will reap melons; if he sows beans, he will reap beans." And this is true of everyone’s life; good begets good, and evil leads to evil. True enough, the sun shines on the saint and the sinner alike, and too often it seems that the wicked prosper. But we can say with certainty that, with the individual as with the nation, the flourishing of the wicked is an illusion, for, unceasingly, life keeps books on us all. In the end, we are all the sum total of our actions. Character cannot be counterfeited, nor can it put on and cast off as if it were a garment to meet the whim of the moment. Like the markings on wood, which are ingrained in the very heart of the tree, character requires time and nurturing for growth and development. Thus also, day by day, we write our own destiny; for inexorably...we become what we do." – Source: http://www.ccel.org/contrib/exec_outlines/gal/ga6_7.htm

C. Be careful what you sow because God’s law of sowing and reaping is immutable (unchangeable) and inviolable.

D. Hosea 8:7 “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”

E. Several years after inventing radar, Sir Robert Watson Watt was arrested in Canada for speeding. He’d been caught in a radar trap. He wrote this poem:

Pity Sir Robert Watson Watt,

Strange target of his radar plot,

And this, with others I could mention,

A victim of his own invention. - Erik Peterson, © 2005-2008 bible.org

F. Good Seed vs. Bad Seed

1. Bad Seed –

a. The Seeds of Sin – Job 4:8 “As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.

b. The Seeds of Discord – Proverbs 6:19 “...one who sows discord among brothers.”

c. The Seeds of Doubt – Matthew 23:1, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.”

2. Good Seed –

a. The Seed of Faith – Luke 17:6 “And the Lord said, ‘If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you’.”

b. The Seed of Righteousness – Hosea 10:12 “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.”

c. The Seed of Benevolence – Luke 6:38 “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”

d. The Seed of the Gospel – 1 Peter 1:22-23 “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God”

II. Never sow mixed seed.

A. Deuteronomy 22:9 “You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole yield be forfeited, the crop that you have sown and the yield of the vineyard.”

B. Ezekiel 44:23 They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the common (profane), and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean.

C. A farmer went each week to the Farmers’ Market to sell, among other things, the cottage cheese and apple butter made on his farm. He carried these in two large tubs, from which he ladled the cottage cheese or apple butter into smaller containers the customer brought. One day he got to market and discovered he’s forgotten one ladle. He felt he had no choice but to use the one he had for both products. Before long, he couldn’t tell which was which. That’s the way it is when we try to sow the good seed and sow wicked. The good becomes tainted by the bad; before long you aren’t able tell the difference between the believer and the unbeliever.