Plenty: Mysteriously Gradually Urgently — Forrest Coleman

Plenty: Mysteriously Gradually Urgently — Forrest Coleman | Mark 4:26-32

Transcript

Forrest 0:06

Hey, I'm Pastor Forrest, and welcome to the Multiply Church Podcast. Each week we open God's word together to help you meet God and multiply good in your everyday life. We're so glad that you've taken time to join us for this week's sermon. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and follow us on social media so you never miss a message. Now, let's dive into this week's sermon. Beginning of this year, I decided to go get some perspective and mentorship from an older pastor who's been doing this longer than me. And uh he he and their church, they've got a great church in the state. It's got multiple campuses, and thousands of people have been baptized. They've been planted now for 18 years. And I went to meet up with him and want to get some wisdom, have my notebook ready, and uh was waiting to get some gems of wisdom, and really I was just thinking about the next phase of growth in our church, and this year, this was back in the beginning of the year, and I was thinking, okay, how are we gonna prepare for this new phase? And about to be four years old. And so I sat down in his office, he started just asking me questions about our church, asking about multiply, how things were going right now, asking about what God was doing, what happened at the end of last year, and uh I was talking and sharing, and after a while, he looked at me and he said, Well, first off, I need to tell you that church growth is a mystery. And that was not what I wanted him to say. I was there for answers, I wanted steps, I was looking for strategy, I was looking for a formula. I'm like, there are three things I can do right now. See the church grow. And uh honestly, at that moment, I want to just like take my notebook and close it up and uh be like, have a great day and head home. Um but over the course of that that day, God used him to implant faith into me and encouragement into me and wisdom into me. And we got to talk about not just how God grows a church, but how God grows people and how he grows his people and how he grows his people and obedience. And there was an important moment for us last year as a church that we took a big step of faith together at the end of last year. We had our plenty series at the end of the year, and we, if you weren't around at the time, our our church, we collectively exercised faith together with this over and above offering that we did at Christmas in preparation of what God was gonna do in this year, and uh this plenty series and offering came from the words of Jesus, where Jesus says, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord of the harvest. And as you think about the harvest, harvest is where does it come from? It comes from seed. It comes from small seed that is seemingly insignificant, easy to lose. You definitely, when you're looking at a seed, you don't see the one-day tree that will grow and the shade that somebody will sit under, or you don't see the bread that'll be made from that kernel of wheat that is gonna feed somebody. And when you're looking at a seed, you you can't yet see the future, but that's how Jesus described the kingdom of God. Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, not like a platform and not just a big crowd, but he talks about the kingdom of God as this small seed. And maybe there's some of you in the room right now, and you're kind of feeling like the small thing or feeling like right now what's going on in your life, that there's some things that are unfinished, things that aren't complete. Maybe you haven't seen the full maturity and all the fruit that one day, one day is gonna come through the Lord, and is Jesus is giving this example, he's showing us the fact that with this small seed that you can't fully explain what's gonna happen within. You can't see it all, but what you see is that it gets buried into the ground, and oftentimes what happens in our life is the seed that gets planted that we bury into the ground, we feel like, oh, okay, well, I can't see what's going on. This is buried, but actually, what's happening is this seed is being planted for what your future is going to look like. And as we're going today, the title of my message is Mysteriously, Gradually, Urgently. In our culture, we have this instant culture, don't we? We want food, we can hit a button, and food's at your door. You get on Amazon, you want to look for something, you can even order something on Amazon and it's at your house in the exact same day. Right? We have this instant culture, and we want that sometimes to look like the same thing in our spiritual life. Like we want to instant healing. We want all of our relationships to be perfect and everything to be good and everything to be restored. We want everything with our finances for all that breakthrough to happen immediately. We want for addiction to be broken immediately. We want all this stuff to be finished right now. Even for me, as I think about our church and think about what we're doing in this next year and the kid space next door that's being renovated. I'm like, I want that done right now. I want it done yesterday. And it's easy for us to get into this mindset of this instant culture and instant gratification when Jesus gives us what he's talking about, his kingdom, which is much different. It's a kingdom that grows in a way that we can't explain it. It's in stages that we can't rush through. And the harvest comes, and it's gonna cause us to need a response to it. God's telling us that we're working through a process. We're working through a process in this life. And oftentimes, instead of us saying, okay, God, I want to walk through the process, instead, what we want to do is we want to control. I heard it said one time, you can either have control or you can have growth, but you can't have both. That we want to have that process of God working in our life, but we don't want the waiting that it requires. Or the mysterious thing that God is doing in us that we can't see what's going on under the surface. Instead, all we want to do is just try to control the situation, or the harvest that we're asking God to do in our life. We're overlooking the seed and how Jesus talks about his kingdom differently. And a few months ago, this plenty offering at the end of this last year, this was this was a seed. It was a seed of people stepping in generosity and people who gave and people prayed. And my family and many families who prayed and sacrificed and are trusting God, and now six months later, we're walking in the fruit of what God is doing. And what we need to learn today about this process that God is taking us through is that we're starting with this that God grows small seeds in ways we can't explain, through stages you can't rush, into a harvest you can't ignore. The process that we walk through in our faith as we grow, that at times can be mysterious. It's this process that's gradual. And when the harvest comes, it leads us to take action. But if we want to stay stuck in this like instant culture, what can happen is we have God who's working a process in our life of growing us. And what can happen is if we don't have the perspective that Jesus is giving us of this gradual growth, what we can do is we can just give up too early. We say, Well, I guess this isn't working. I guess God's not seeing me. I guess God's not seeing my situation, and we can end up punching out and throwing in the towel before the harvest has come. In Mark chapter 4, Jesus is talking about seed, the seed, and he gives the seed language and several analogies, and he gives the parable of the sower, and then at the end of Mark chapter four, he gives a parable that's one that's not very famous, and then one that's really famous about a seed. And the first parable, he talks about how the kingdom grows, and then the second parable, he talks about how the how the kingdom, how the kingdom, and what the kingdom becomes. And as we're gonna look at these two passages, one that's famous, one that's not. I love giving air time to parables that don't get any airtime normally from what Jesus said, and to show you. So if you have your Bible, go to Mark chapter 4. We're gonna be in verse 26 and following. It'll also be on the screen. Jesus gives this parable of a seed. In verse 26. And he was saying, The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil. He goes to bed at night and gets up daily, and the seed sprouts and grows. How? He himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. Now, when the crop permits, he immediately puts his puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come. And in verse 30. And he was saying, How shall we picture the kingdom of God? Or by what parable shall we present it? It's like a mustard seed, which when sown upon the soil, though it is the smallest of all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches, with the result that the birds of the sky can nest under its shade. Jesus gives this picture of a farmer and he says, The kingdom of God is like this man who goes out and he sows the seed and then he goes to bed and he wakes up and he does that every day. And while he's sleeping and while he's waking up, this seed is sprouting and it's growing. And Jesus says he doesn't know how this is actually happening for himself. He doesn't know it's this mystery. But what's happening is that the scene that has been sown, the soil that it goes into, Jesus says that the soil produces the crop itself, first the stock, then the head, then the mature grain. And then he goes on to say that as soon as the crop permits, then the farmer grabs the sickle and he goes out and he harvests the crop in urgency once the harvest has come. And I don't know about you, but for me, a lot of times, I don't want to go through this whole process. I just want the end result. When somebody says you got to enjoy the journey, I'm like, no, I'm not enjoying the journey. I want to get to the destination. Don't tell me to enjoy the journey. Like, how fast can we get to where we're going? Pull out the GPS, let's figure out the path. Don't miss me with all this enjoy the journey stuff. I just want the end result. Our spiritual life, maybe for you, you've you've felt that struggle of the process too. Where you thought, you know, God, I've been praying. I've been giving, I've I've been showing up. I've been trying to be faithful and obedient to you. And if what if we're not careful, the seed that's in the ground will say that it's a failure just because it's unfinished. Just because we got haven't gotten to see how God is gonna bring the harvest through the process. Jesus, he he says that the soil it produces the crop itself. And the soil, we have to make sure that for us, that the environments that we're in, where we're placing ourselves, that we ourselves are in good soil. And so if we're gonna understand this process, we're gonna walk in maturity to God, you you got to get good dirt to do the work. The soil produces the crops by itself, is what Jesus says. What kind of soil are you in? What kind of environments are you in? Are you in environments that are helping to cultivate your faith, your obedience to God, your repentance to God, the healing that you need? Or are you putting yourself in situations where you're outside of the good soil? Because let me tell you, church is good dirt. Small group is good dirt. Kids ministry, what's happened across the way here with our kids, that's good dirt. When we serve our city and we go outside the walls and we love our city and we do stuff with Frankfurt Forward, that's good dirt. When we show up at campus at K-State and we love people and want to see God move there, that's good dirt. When we're stepping and walking in generosity, when we're seeing other churches be started and planted, this is all cultivating redemption. And for us, we are stepping into this good soil that God has for us. Now, don't be confused. It's God who's the one who brings the miracle. We just have to get ourselves in the good dirt, in the good soil, because in the good soil, that's where you make room for the miracle. God's the one who brings the miracle, but you've got to position yourself in the good soil. You have to position yourself in the good dirt, in good relationships, and people who are encouraging you and people who are helping spur you on into what's next in the future of your life and where God's taking you. But oftentimes the enemy just wants to lie to you and say you can do it all alone. Oh, I I don't need anybody else. I I I don't need a small group. I don't I I can I got this, I can read my Bible at home, and I'm I'm good. I I don't need to serve, like I got a lot going on right now. It's all good. But as you place yourself and God sends you into places and spaces where you're able to be planted in good soil, that's where miracles begin to happen in your life. And so if you if you throw your seed onto concrete, don't blame the seed for not growing. The seed needs good soil, it needs good people, it needs the grace of God and and truth and patience and and and worship and discipleship. And and that's really what happened this last year at the end of our year, is we all together in faith had this over and above offering and this plenty offering this last year. And what it what we were collectively doing is saying, God, we're making room for your redeeming love to move. We're making room, we're making space, we're making room, we're making room for more kids and families, teenagers, youth in this house, we're making more room for God to move through us. That's going on right now. There's demolition that's happening next door, and it's a mess over there, y'all. But how many of you know that demolition isn't always about destruction? Sometimes demolition is about preparation, preparing for a harvest. There's dust over there, there's walls that come down. Because we're making room. But I wonder for you, what needs to be torn down in your life to make room for the harvest that God wants to bring into it? What sin needs to be torn down? What sin needs to be torn out of your life by confession and conversation and asking the Lord for forgiveness and telling a brother, what kind of walls need to come down over your heart so that you can walk in the harvest that God has for you? What kind of things need to get torn down and torn down, torn out? What are things that need to get torn out that is a lack of faith over your family and what he wants to do? And have a little bit of a demolition and cleaning out and making room to prepare for the harvest. And you probably don't either, right? I'm sure there's times where you have felt like, man, am I really praying over this same battle that I've been fighting? Am I really dealing with this same shame that I've been dealing with, or this same sin thing that's happening to me, or I can't believe I'm starting over my sobriety, or I'm trying to rebuild. But Jesus tells us that it's the good soil that then produces the seed, but it's not just the soil, there's also a process that happens, right? He says there's first the stalk, then there's the head of the stalk, and then ultimately there's the mature grain. And as we're walking with God, we have to be patient in the process. We have to be patient in the process. First the stalk, then the head, then the mature grain that's on the head, and Jesus is showing us the stages that are happening. You cannot microwave maturity in Christ. It's not just instant discipleship, there's a process that Jesus is walking you through of becoming more like him and becoming more mature. And that doesn't happen overnight, it happens in stages. This last week I was helping a church and I was training a church that's wanting to become a disciple-making church. And was meeting with their leaders and pastors, and we were having round tables and conversations and talking with them, and I was telling them about the process, the reproducible process of making a disciple that really starts with somebody who gives their life to Christ first. And as soon as they give their life to Christ, then they become a spiritual infant. It's kind of like in life. You become an infant, you become a spiritual infant, which infants are super cute, everybody loves them, filled with joy, but they can't do anything for themselves. Somebody's got to feed them, somebody's got to take care of them. Do everything for them. And in the same way, when you come to Christ, when somebody accepts Christ, then all of a sudden they're in spiritual infancy and they need others to help them along the way. And I have known some 80-year-old people who have been Christians for a long, long time that are still spiritual infants because they're having to be spoon-fed everything because they've never learned how to feed themselves. They've never learned how to start walking in the process that God has for them and the harvest that he has for them. And so if you begin to learn to do some things for yourself, then you move into spiritual childhood. Where you can, just like regular children, you can start to read, you can start to do some things. You start to do some things for yourself. You can read the scripture, you start to serve, you can clean up your room, you can do stuff, you can do stuff in the kingdom of God. But just like my little girls, everything in your life is about mine, mine, mine. Me, me, me, my toy, my thing. And when you're stuck in spiritual childhood, what ends up happening is even the stuff that you're doing for God a lot of the times comes back to is this a good experience for me and my family? Man, I man, I'm I'm serving at church because man, I feel really great when I leave every Sunday. Or man, you know, I really think that we can do this or that so that so that this could be a better experience for my family and for me and mine. And Jesus is pushing us out of this me-centered spirituality of childhood, and he wants to move us into what he did. That we know that Jesus, he said that the Son of Man has not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. That we have an example of Jesus that he loved us so much that he was not just focused on himself, but he was loving and focused on other people. And so if you move, when you move out of spiritual childhood, which I I I genuinely believe that most of the American church is stuck in spiritual infancy and spiritual childhood. But if you move over into spiritual young adulthood, all of a sudden the things of God now not just become about just you, but it's about how you can who you can help. Who else in your life can experience this? Yes, your children, yes, your friends, but even beyond that. It's like a regular teenager, you can start getting some independence, you start doing some things for yourself, you get some car keys, you start being about your friends, you can start figuring out what God wants you to do with your life, and you can start to really serve and love people. And then you have the mentality like this you know what? On Sundays, I'm gonna serve in the nursery so some parents can sit and receive the word of God in the service. Are y'all hearing me? You start having a different mindset around the things of God and ultimately spiritual parenthood, where you're actually making disciples and helping somebody walk through. And it's this process that God's walking us through from the stalk to the head to the mature grain on the head. And as you're walking in that maturity with Jesus, all of a sudden you begin now to experience the harvest of the kingdom of God flowing through your life. Because now you're getting to be a part of dead things coming alive. You're getting to be a part of the maturity that God's led you into. You're getting to walk in the generosity that God's called you to. You're getting to walk in the blessing of having a family that's that's dedicated to God and trying to raise your children, to love the Lord, your grandchildren. We got to experience one of these uh generosity moments actually a few weeks ago. In our church, there's there's uh a dad who's in our church who's been going through a tough time, who's involved in our church, and a family in our church learned of what was going on that he was in need of transportation. And so a few weeks ago, a family in our church actually donated a car. And a couple of weeks ago, between services, we got to present this donated car and give it to this dad. And what a beautiful moment of the generosity of God. What a beautiful moment of a family that saw a need and was filling a need in a in an others-focused generosity move to bring real, real help and stability and forward motion into somebody else's life. It was absolutely beautiful. It was one of those harvest moments where somebody got to receive and got to be helped by the love and the maturity of somebody else. Don't you want to see more of that, church? Don't you want to see God do even more of that? And it's it's it's tough at times because if you're being really cynical, you know, you could think, oh, well, you know, that's just one car, you know, that's just one, that's just one story and one person. It's like, no, that's one story that matters to God that He loves. And and that and at times I struggle because there are things that happen, small things that happen around, and the small things that happen in the church, and small things that that happen at times. And it's easy for me to think about these things as being insignificant when really Jesus is literally telling us that this seed, something that it's tiny, something that it's small, something that's easily overlooked, something that easily is missed, that Jesus is the one who's telling us that if you would plant that mustard seed in faith, what could he do with it? And I'm sure there's times for you where you get in that headspace where you think, well, you know, does this even really matter? Is what I'm doing even making a difference? Is is the tithe that I'm bringing, is it, is this really actually making an impact? Is this giving that I'm doing, is this really doing something? Is it what I'm serving? I'm showing up what I'm doing. Is this really showing? Is it really gonna lead to what Jesus said? And here's Jesus looking at us and saying, if you would sow a mustard seed of faith, then you could get a move, a mighty move of God. He says, How should we picture the kingdom of God? This parable he says it's like it's like this small mustard seed. It's easily missed. But if you bring that mustard seed of faith, what's gonna happen is that it's gonna grow into larger than any of the other garden plants, and then the branches that are formed, then others are gonna be able to sit under the shelter of that one small seed. Branches of obedience and of shelter and ministry. And what we see happen is what we can see happen is that it's God that when we just bring a small thing to him, but it's within his hands, he can multiply it and become a movement. I don't know about you, but I want to see the move of God in this city. And what you do we sing that song? I want to see the move of God in my family. I want to see the move of God in this church, I want to see the move of God in this city. Does anybody want to see a move of God in this place and in the number of cities and the number of families? And does anybody want to see God move? And all we need to do is come to Him with this faith as small as a mustard seed in the city. God, we're trusting you in the process, we're gonna trust you with the outcome. We're gonna keep bringing what may seem small, and a gift and a prayer, a sacrifice, and what's gonna happen is we're gonna watch God grow these branches. Branches that are gonna be kids coming to Christ through kids' ministry. And it's gonna be God growing branches into our city and into K-State's campus and small groups and other churches being planted and branches of generosity where other people are gonna be able to find the shelter of God. A few weeks ago, you got to meet my friend Ryan, Ryan Straub and his family are planting holy church in Salt Lake City, Utah. And he was here a few weeks ago. And one of the things last year in our plenty offering that we gave towards is church planting and seeing other churches planted, and so this is a vision. We've seen God move here in Frankfurt, and we want to see God move in other capital cities and to have a work that started there because we want to see churches be planted in these capital cities, not for the politics, but for the people, and for those places to become an outpost. And so I got to talk to Ryan this last week, and he's so excited because uh there's two families that are gonna be moving from Texas to Salt Lake to help them get going. And he was telling me it's a few months from now, in the beginning of the fall, August, September, they're gonna start doing their interest nights and dinner parties. And at the beginning of this year, we began to sew into them monthly gift. It's $500 a month. It seems small, but it's gonna make an impact and a blessing for these dinner parties that are gonna be hosting new people who are gonna get to sit under branches that God's gonna build. And I'm just believing that if we just continue to bring a small mustard seed to God, what in the world can you do? Just in the last couple of weeks, I had a conversation two weeks ago with a church planter that's right outside of Manhattan, New York, that we were having a conversation about church planting in their capital in Trenton. And then last week, this last week, I got taught to talk to a church that's planting churches in Austin, Texas, these bilingual churches that are in these areas that are predominantly Spanish speaking. And uh I had a couple people reach out two days ago that are in Tallahassee, Florida, want to talk about it. And I'm like, hey, y'all, y'all's, y'all's cool it right now, okay? Y'all slow down. We're not doing all that right now. But it but it's interesting that it's interesting that when you plant a seed, that all of a sudden these conversations start happening. And say, okay, God, what who knows what you're gonna do? Right here at home. Y'all know that we've had baptisms the last three weeks here at Multiply. Three weeks in a row for the first time ever, we've had baptisms three weeks in a row here at Multiply. For the first time ever. Three weeks in a row. You know, we've already served in our city with Frankfurt Ford ten times already this year, with schools and the crisis nursery, and we've already given, we've already invested thousands into our community already this year. Um I know what times for me, I I can get frustrated and I can feel like, man, you know, we're we're behind, or man, we're doing more. What more can we do? And I need to be in a mindset of trusting the process of the gradual growth that God's gonna do because one day we know we're gonna be walking in the harvest. That God's been leading us to sow seed too. And I just have to remind myself that God's not just the God of the harvest, He's the Lord of the seed, He's the God of the soil, He's the God of the stalk, He's the God of the head of grain, He's the God of maturity, He's the God of the whole thing. And that it was Jesus, that He was the seed that went into the ground. In John 12, Jesus said that unless unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it will bear much fruit. Like Jesus was buried into the ground, but the burial was not the end of the story. Because what seemed lost and what seemed unsure and what seemed unforeseen led to Christ, that something that was buried ultimately teaches us that those buried things can be alive. And what we plant, that what seems like a failure now, it's not final with God. Jail, it's not final. Divorce, it's not final. That's sin right now in your life, that's not the final story over you. Even death itself is not final because Jesus got up and he walked out of the grave victorious, dying on the cross in your place, and then buried in the ground and walking out alive, so then you can walk out of your grave alive as well, and walk into the harvest that God has for you. That you can walk into the growth and the maturity that God's leading you to, and that you can walk in the everyday obedience and blessing that comes from God. Can you just imagine with me for a moment? People coming through the doors, hear it multiply, and maybe they're feeling like they're starting over or having to rebuild from scratch, and they're meeting with people, they're met with people who say, come, come walk, come walk in this process that Jesus has for you and be planted. People who walk in the door and they've they've got shame on them. But what they're doing is they're walking into a place where they're already walking into the shelter of our King and our God. Imagine with me the kids who are gonna receive Christ and grow in their faith, my kids, your kids, and the space. Next door pathways in the university at K State, more churches that are planted and let's not let's not grow impatient. But see God do a harvest and work a harvest and start so small. Maybe for you that step is that you need to just receive Christ as your savior, you need to start with salvation, you need to start with being baptized, you need to grab that card that's in your seat and in front of you or in front of you, you need to check baptism because you need to take the step of obedience and you need to plant a seed so that God can work in you, or maybe the home that you're in right now that you need to trust God that He's growing, and if you'll just in the everyday obedience that God's gonna bring the harvest to you. So you stand to your feet right now, and I'm gonna pray over every home that's represented. Right now, God, I pray right now over every home in this place. God, I pray for men, women, and children. I pray for moms and dads and for grandparents right now, God, that we would be people, God, who would trust you for the harvest. That God, we wouldn't get impatient, that God, we wouldn't want to rush it, that we wouldn't want to miss it. But instead, God, that we would stay faithful to you. And in doing so, God, we're gonna see your kingdom grow in our homes and our children, our children's children right now. I pray, God, right now, for every home that's represented in this room. That God, you would help us to have eyes to see. And the trust of God, the mighty work that you're gonna do and the harvest that you're bringing in and through our lives. God, I pray right now for our church. That God, we would be a place, Father, where people would be able to experience your love, that God, they would experience the transformation that comes from the cross. And God, we believe in faith. And ask right now, God, that you would bring a harvest. That God, you would work and move in our city. And we're believing you for it. We love you, we praise you in the strong name of Jesus. Everybody said, Amen.

Sallie 37:51

We're so grateful you joined us for this week's message. At Multiply, we believe life was never meant to be lived alone. If today you made the decision to follow Jesus, we'd be honored to walk with you on this journey. Visit multiplyky.com to let us know. We love you and we'll see you again soon.