From Seed To Fruitfulness Part 1

 Here now, with Jesus talking about the good soil in Luke 8:15, which produces on the word of God, we read this unusual statement from Him: "But that on the good ground are they which in an honest and good noble heart, having heard the word, keep it and bring forth fruit with patience. "I say this seems a little unusual or it sounds kind of funny the way Jesus stated this, but He alludes to a fact—it must be a fact, of course—that in some way the soils representing people not producing on the word, that their hearts were not truly honest or noble. Out of a good and noble heart, Jesus says they produce on the word of God. They believe and receive what they planted. If we're reading that correctly, I believe it's safe to say what He's saying there: there's really no excuse not to. Now, I know this is a tough pill to swallow, but if we're wise, I'd suggest it's best to step up to the plate and accept it. With us always failing to produce on the word of God, we need to look at ourselves in the mirror—or, there's another saying in culture—we need to be brutally honest with ourselves. 

I believe that's what Jesus was saying. We need to be brutally honest with ourselves and come to the place of admitting what we clearly should and understand that if I'm not producing on the word of God, I need to stop blaming Him—that it's somehow His fault. Also, we don't default to a position all the time that "well, God’s in control." You know, that kind of lets people off the hook in the way that they think. But Jesus is saying and putting a cross: everything has been made available for a Christian’s life to be successful and victorious. Now if we flopped around in defeat at times—and I believe all of us have, and none of us have been perfect, of course—well, fair enough, but we need to get back up if we have fallen, and be nonproductive, and as they say, go back to the drawing board and piece together just where we went amiss. God is still there to lift us up, encourage us, and put our feet on solid firm footing again. Always remember that God does His part. He makes the seed of His word grow and produce—that's if the person is carrying out their part, putting the word of God in them in abundance, and watering the seed and keeping the weeds out. 

Remember the standard of Psalms chapter 1, which says if you want to become like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, you must comply with one who meditates on the word day and night. Day and night meditation on the word is part of the same passage. Let's not read that and say, "Well, I'm just going to do a workaround." No, there's no such thing as a workaround. One will just come back around to say defeat or fruitlessness again and again. So Jesus is saying: be honest with yourselves. Okay, some will say in their difficult situation, "Where's God?" But just know this: He may be saying to us, "Where are you?" Are we trying to live out our Christian life on a promised box mentality? We'll give the world hours of our time each day—might be to news, might be to sports, might be to watching the latest movie or other things that distract us. Take your pick, there are thousands of things that try to get our attention. We give those things hours of our time a day, but God? Five minutes tops. How about we flip that around and give the world the five-minute deal? ..

Let me say that again: how about we flip that around and give the world the five-minute deal, and give God the number of hours? Am I saying you can't ever watch a film or sports event or other? No, but be ever conscious of who and what is getting the greatest bulk of your time. Is it the world and the lust of other things, or do we give that quality time to God, fellowshipping with Him and His word? Now Jesus revealed again the high place that a mentality about seeds—God's word being such—should have in our lives. The kingdom of God is as a man sowing seed into the ground (Mark 4:26).Not only is His word, but even our every action and life are to be considered seed. Jesus said about His own life that He was considered a seed, where He said very truly, "I tell you unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed; but if it dies, it produces many seeds" (John 12:24). So, we think of our lives that way too. Paul said, "I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, and the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God" (Galatians 2:20). 

We are seed—seed as well. Jesus is seed; also, our actions are considered seeds. We cast a pebble into a still pond and observe its ripple effects. A seed too is small, and one might be tempted to almost laugh when one hears of its potential, but we can see the physical creation testifies of its wonder. Just look at all the big trees and anything that comes from a seed. One of the biggest trees in the world is the mighty Redwood. They say many of them can end up at a height of over 300 feet, which is huge, big, and massive, and yet it all came from a very small, minuscule-looking seed. So we could say—I'll repeat that again—within the Redwood seed is the DNA or the blueprint for the colossal sized tree. Something very small and minuscule, within its smallness, is something so very great, or that which has amazing potential that you would never think would be possible. It can grow thousands of times its size as it comes out of its seed shell. So was the seed of the word of God when it comes to His promises. You have the seeds of salvation, born again by the incorruptible seed of God's word—not corruptible seeds but incorruptible seed of God's word causes you to become born again (1 Peter 1:23). 

You have seeds of healing, you have seeds of faith against fear, you have seeds of love—God’s nature—that we become a part of after we become born again which elevates you above hate. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, the Bible says, because God’s seed remains in them (1 John 3:9), and they cannot go on sinning because they have been born of God. So it’s what has been imparted in you that causes you to become an overcomer, but we do have to bring it forth, or at least we have to do our part to do so. Now somebody says, "No, we don't have any part to do anything." But that way of thinking, truly friends, is just passivity on steroids. It's just not scriptural. 

It may sound good, may look good, but God always told men they had to do things to bring about victory or to cooperate with Him. When Moses and Israel were at the Red Sea, God told Moses to stretch out his rod over the sea. That’s not something God did for him. God supplied the power, but he had to supply the actions of obedience. There are a lot of people who think the blessings of God will just fall on you like ripe cherries off of a tree, but it doesn’t work that way. God says for us to lay hands on the sick and see them recover—our hands, not His hands. We have our part to play in the process here, folks. But God says, "I’ll supply the power." And the list can go on and on of things God says we’re to do. One thing we are to do is to make the life and the power contained in the seed come forth. And Philippians 6 says that our faith becomes effective by the acknowledging of every good thing in us in Christ Jesus. Now that’s how you bring it forth—by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in us in