SPEAKER_00: I want to speak today on sowing and reaping.
SPEAKER_00: And I was going to talk on something else, but it was so clear when I was praying on Friday night, I felt like the Lord said, No, I want you to speak on sowing and reaping.
SPEAKER_00: So here we are.
SPEAKER_00: And this is not primarily about money, although obviously money is one arena we get to stew it.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm talking about is what you sew with your whole life, what you're vested in, what you're putting time into, what you're putting your attention into, what your priorities are, and do you actually live them out?
SPEAKER_00: What do you do with your money?
SPEAKER_00: Is it spent on you or to allay future fears?
SPEAKER_00: What are you sewing resources into?
SPEAKER_00: What are you investing your prayer into?
SPEAKER_00: Is it always about you or personal needs, or is it sewing into the kingdom for the lost, for the nations, for the kingdom to come, for those that don't know the Lord yet?
SPEAKER_00: For the church to be strengthened?
SPEAKER_00: What about your gifting and strengths and capacities?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a plan for how you are sowing them into others' lives, whether it's through work, ministry, prayer, friendship, hospitality, whatever it is?
SPEAKER_00: And I want to address a few principles about sowing and reaping because I think it often causes confusion in believers and often brings people to a place where they're questioning the character of God.
SPEAKER_00: And God is our provider, he's our healer, he's our power, and we can call on his name whenever we desire.
SPEAKER_00: And that's true.
SPEAKER_00: And when you have a baby, pretty much every time it cries, you feed it.
SPEAKER_00: But hopefully, not your five-year-old or your 30-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, there's been a process of maturing.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, there's been a process of understanding self-government.
SPEAKER_00: And so God provides absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, no money, no credit card, no backup plan.
SPEAKER_00: Just his word.
SPEAKER_00: And it's fine afterwards.
SPEAKER_00: At the time, it's terrifying getting on a plane with no money, no credit card, and no one to meet you.
SPEAKER_00: But what it did was it freed me from this is how it has to work.
SPEAKER_00: And it put me in a place where it's like, all I need is what God's saying.
SPEAKER_00: All I need is what God's doing.
SPEAKER_00: And it taught me to yield and trust.
SPEAKER_00: And we're expected to learn in those seasons the absolute faithfulness of God and his capacity to provide water for three million people in a desert.
SPEAKER_00: We're expected to learn that God can know your needs and can provide for them day by day.
SPEAKER_00: He can feed three million people every day for 40 years.
SPEAKER_00: And those seasons are beautiful and they're so beneficial and they're so full of glory.
SPEAKER_00: But often then we just want to live in that season.
SPEAKER_00: Like God will provide, God will provide, God will provide.
SPEAKER_00: But how does he want to provide?
SPEAKER_00: Because he often doesn't leave us permanently in that situation.
SPEAKER_00: And my question is why?
SPEAKER_00: And my answer to the why is because the very first command that God gave us was to steward the earth.
SPEAKER_00: It is very dear to God's heart that we become stewards, that we can manage resource, we become trustworthy with the things of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Before the fall, before there was any need, any sin, any breach in communion, the first thing to be done by humans in partnership with God was stewardship.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, if you're just waiting for manna to fall from the sky every day, or someone to go there's fifty bucks for fuel for the car, it's not a process of stewardship.
SPEAKER_00: It's a different lesson, it's a different learning, it's learning trust, it's learning dependence, it's learning the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_00: But at some point, God will move you into learning stewardship.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you'll go back.
SPEAKER_00: There's seasons where we still have no idea God keeps increasing the demand, increasing the stretch.
SPEAKER_00: So you never really step out of needing God to provide, but then you get that stretch and then you learn to steward it.
SPEAKER_00: And then he asks you to step out more, and you have to live by faith, and then he teaches you stewardship.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's this beautiful process back and forth.
SPEAKER_00: And God is very, very, very committed to our growing in stewardship in everything he places in your hands, every moment he places in your hands is your time to steward.
SPEAKER_00: Every day, every gifting he's given you, every capability, every dollar he's given you.
SPEAKER_00: All of these things are in your hand, and it's completely up to you what you're going to do with it.
SPEAKER_00: And so when Israel was entering into the promises of God, the manna stopped.
SPEAKER_00: Says in Joshua 5.12, then the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land, and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate the food of the land.
SPEAKER_00: They changed seasons.
SPEAKER_00: God had prepared a mindset change to a different dependence on God, a different processing of faithfulness, a different partnership with him.
SPEAKER_00: And he did that for months and possibly years beforehand.
SPEAKER_00: In Deuteronomy 28, it says, This is God speaking to them before they get to that place.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments, which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed shall you be in the city, blessed shall you be in the country, blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, and increase of your hands, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed shall be when you come in, and blessed shall be you when you go out.
SPEAKER_00: Verse eleven And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord will open to you his good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand.
SPEAKER_00: You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail.
SPEAKER_00: You shall be above only and not beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them.
SPEAKER_00: What is the blessing of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: What's the gateway of blessing here?
SPEAKER_00: It's obeying his voice, it's communing with him, it's yielding our lives, it's obeying what he says.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said that if you abide in me and my word abides in you, that's a constant feeding on the word.
SPEAKER_00: Then you'll bear much fruit.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just, God, make this, make me really fruitful, make this event really fruitful, do this, do this, do this.
SPEAKER_00: He gave us the pathway: obedience and letting his word abide in us.
SPEAKER_00: Sowing.
SPEAKER_00: God's promising here that you're blessed so you can lend to the world.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a vision for your life of that?
SPEAKER_00: You stand in such blessings of the Lord that you can lend to the world.
SPEAKER_00: What's that mean?
SPEAKER_00: It's a lifestyle of generosity, it's a lifestyle of where you're seeing where you can sow into the city, where you can pour out love and kindness and prayer and resource into the people around you, into the city, into the nations.
SPEAKER_00: That's lending to the world.
SPEAKER_00: And there's this promise of blessing in every arena: city, country, family, crops, herds, weaving, pantry.
SPEAKER_00: It goes on.
SPEAKER_00: God's trying to say, in everything, I have blessing.
SPEAKER_00: But what is this blessing on?
SPEAKER_00: It is on what you have sold.
SPEAKER_00: It's on what you're putting effort into, what you're making, what you're tending to, what you're building, what you're putting your hand to, what you're praying in, what you're serving faithfully with, those times when you keep inviting people over, serving them with a meal, when you keep going out, reaching out to people, God says, I will bless that.
SPEAKER_00: God had broken off unbelief and that slave mentality of brokenness when he led the children of Israel out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: But that wasn't the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: That lifestyle was not promised land.
SPEAKER_00: Promised land is stewardship where you partner with the Father, where you're yielded in obedience to him, to his ways, and together you are bringing forth a harvest.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to just close your eyes for a second, and I want you to just see that.
SPEAKER_00: You and the Father bringing forth a harvest.
SPEAKER_00: You and the father on a patch of land that is your calling, your destiny, what he's called you to do, and you are bringing forth a harvest.
SPEAKER_00: And you don't bring forth a harvest by hoping it will happen.
SPEAKER_00: You don't bring forth a harvest just wishing it was there.
SPEAKER_00: You bring forth a harvest with effort, with intentionality.
SPEAKER_00: And after God led the children of Israel into the promised land, he never went back to a lifestyle of just dropping off food to them.
SPEAKER_00: In Isaiah 30, verse 23, it says this He's promising restoration and blessing on Israel when they turn back to him.
SPEAKER_00: And it says, Then he will give the rain for your seed which you sow into the ground, and bread of the increase of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: It will be fat and plentiful.
SPEAKER_00: In that day your cattle will feed in large pastures.
SPEAKER_00: Likewise the oxen and the young donkeys that work the ground will eat cured fodder, which has been winnowed and the shovel with the shovel and the fan.
SPEAKER_00: Who planted the seed?
SPEAKER_00: Who needed the bread?
SPEAKER_00: Who managed the cattle?
SPEAKER_00: Who yoked those oxen and donkeys?
SPEAKER_00: Who winnowed the seed?
SPEAKER_00: These are all things that require extreme effort.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom requires extreme effort.
SPEAKER_00: It requires intentionality, it requires a planning, and it was a joy to do it in partnership with God and Him multiply through it.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to turn to Isaiah 61.
SPEAKER_00: And in Isaiah 61, we see this beautiful principle at work again.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor.
SPEAKER_00: He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
SPEAKER_00: You could read it every day and just fall at his feet.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is the ministry of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is the anointing on the Messiah, the anointed one.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he does.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that brought forth the good news of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that announces freedom to us from sin.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that sets us free from bitterness and unforgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that opens those prison doors.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that heals.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that proclaimed acceptance before the Father and judged the enemy on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that makes us oaks of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that gives us beauty for ashes.
SPEAKER_00: It's a prophecy about Jesus, and Jesus declared it about himself at the start of his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: He read it, opened the scroll, I'm it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here.
SPEAKER_00: But Isaiah 61 then turns to those people that the Lord has touched.
SPEAKER_00: It starts talking about you and me.
SPEAKER_00: It starts talking about what is possible with every believer.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone that has been set free, has been delivered, has been healed, has been beautified, has been brought near to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't say that they're just waiting for the next thing the anointed one's going to do.
SPEAKER_00: It says in verse 4, they shall rebuild the old ruins.
SPEAKER_00: They shall raise up the former desolations.
SPEAKER_00: They shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations.
SPEAKER_00: That's you and me.
SPEAKER_00: This is the privilege.
SPEAKER_00: This is the impact of what Jesus does on our lives.
SPEAKER_00: He so sets us free.
SPEAKER_00: That you actually have a whole lot of energy to rebuild cities.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't say he'll do that.
SPEAKER_00: It says they will.
SPEAKER_00: Those people that have received of the anointing of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Have you considered how much work it is to rebuild ruins?
SPEAKER_00: You know, like I see these pictures from this war.
SPEAKER_00: And some bombs being dropped somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: And it's just rubble everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And I just in my heart, I just get down on my knees and I'm like, God, how are they ever gonna clear that, let alone build it again?
SPEAKER_00: Like it takes years to build an apartment block.
SPEAKER_00: This is this pile of rubble.
SPEAKER_00: Have you considered how hard it is, the effort involved to go into broken places, desolations, and repair ruined cities?
SPEAKER_00: It happens in the power of the Spirit and the grace of his presence.
SPEAKER_00: Partnering with people who are willing to put in a whole lot of effort.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great commission right here.
SPEAKER_00: We've been healed, touched, restored, filled, and loved.
SPEAKER_00: Now go and do something with your life.
SPEAKER_00: And it'll be hard, it'll be enormous effort.
SPEAKER_00: But you'll change history.
SPEAKER_00: It's full of glory and mystery partnership with heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't matter what arena God calls you into it into, it's all part of this glorious plan of calling the nations, redeeming the tribes and nations to himself.
SPEAKER_00: It's no secret to anyone who's spent more than about five minutes with me that I completely love my boys.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I loved every moment.
SPEAKER_00: I used to get really angry when patients would go, it only gets harder when they were little.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that is a lie.
SPEAKER_00: I loved every moment, every age, every bit.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there were hard times, but but I tell you the joy of having them as partners, as partners in the gospel, as carrying their own vision, their own destiny, their own purposes, and seeing them.
SPEAKER_00: It's wondrous.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a little bit of how the Father sees us.
SPEAKER_00: He loves every moment with us.
SPEAKER_00: He loves when we're brand new believers just crying out for milk, crying out for him to touch us.
SPEAKER_00: But he also loves the journey when we're sent out, healed, restored, full of purpose and destiny.
SPEAKER_00: What I want to say about sowing and reaping is this you can't sow because you need to reap now.
SPEAKER_00: There's an intentionality in sewing because there's a long lapse of time.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what often brings confusion to believers that I see.
SPEAKER_00: I see a lot of believers suddenly in a situation where they need financial breakthrough and they suddenly want to sew money and hope it'll bounce back.
SPEAKER_00: I see people suddenly need power for breakthrough in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And so they suddenly want to like somehow clamber to that point.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that God doesn't teach us in those moments and come through with us.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not the process of sowing and reaping.
SPEAKER_00: Seed takes time to germinate.
SPEAKER_00: It's what's sowed into your life day by day.
SPEAKER_00: And I was just looking up this morning the natural process of sowing and reaping.
SPEAKER_00: I remember when we first moved here and I was working in the emergency department, and some of the nurses, like their husbands, were farmers.
SPEAKER_00: And so we'd be talking and I'd hear about this process of sewing.
SPEAKER_00: And I could not believe the amount of money these farmers put into sowing.
SPEAKER_00: I was shocked.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't get my head around it.
SPEAKER_00: And I was looking it up again.
SPEAKER_00: The average crop farm size in Australia is two and a half thousand hectares.
SPEAKER_00: And it's about$600 a hectare to sow seed, just seed.
SPEAKER_00: That's sowing seed.
SPEAKER_00: That means it costs one and a half million dollars of investment to sow seed for the average farmer.
SPEAKER_00: The seed may or may not take.
SPEAKER_00: The rain may or may not come.
SPEAKER_00: The rodents may or may not eat it.
SPEAKER_00: It's risk, it's choice, it's this huge act of faith every single year.
SPEAKER_00: One and a half million dollars on the line sowed.
SPEAKER_00: And I say that because it's meant to grip our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: There is a reason why the Bible uses this analogy again and again and again.
SPEAKER_00: In biblical times, the cost of sowing was seed that you didn't sell.
SPEAKER_00: It was seed that you didn't keep to make bread for your kids if you run out.
SPEAKER_00: It was this cost to set it aside and put it into the ground, not guaranteed that the harvest would come.
SPEAKER_00: In Psalm 126, it's a song of ascent.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you know about the song of ascent, but there were these songs that the people would sing as they walked up to Jerusalem to make covenant again with God, to celebrate God three times a year at Passover, at Pentecost, and at the Feast of Tabernacles, all of which has been fulfilled in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But it was this journey, this journey of reflection up into that place of worship.
SPEAKER_00: And they're called the Song of Songs or the Song of Ascents or Song of Steps because they're about the process of walking with God.
SPEAKER_00: So you can kind of imagine them singing these songs as they take the journey, as they walk up that days and days of journey to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And they're singing about the process of walking with God in life.
SPEAKER_00: And in Psalm 126, verse 5, it says this those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.
SPEAKER_00: He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to reap in harvest, if you want to reap in joy, if you want that joy of the harvest of souls, the harvest of labor, the harvest of situations changing through prayer, whatever your harvest is, there will be a sowing in tears.
SPEAKER_00: There will be a cost in prayer, in effort, in love, in money, in giving, in serving.
SPEAKER_00: There's a cost that you are sowing in.
SPEAKER_00: And the harvest is not the next day.
SPEAKER_00: But the word here in this verse is shall.
SPEAKER_00: You shall return.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a maybe, it isn't a possibility.
SPEAKER_00: With God, there's this promise of harvest that brings forth exceeding joy, shouting joy, whooping joy, excessive joy.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if any of you have prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed for someone to come to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And when they do, Jesus said, all heaven just breaks out.
SPEAKER_00: The angels break out in joy.
SPEAKER_00: All of heaven celebrates that joy is remarkable.
SPEAKER_00: But this psalm is talking about this lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: He who continually goes forth weeping.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying we walk around mourning.
SPEAKER_00: That's nothing to do with the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: What that word in Hebrew is, is this the one who keeps walking forward with such a cost that it can bring tears.
SPEAKER_00: That's what that verse means.
SPEAKER_00: We're continually walking forward, and I'm telling you, there is a cost.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that cost will bring tears to your eyes.
SPEAKER_00: But it isn't self-pity, it's not this self-deprecating walk.
SPEAKER_00: It's this mindset of investment.
SPEAKER_00: It's this mindset of costly investment into the ground, into the dust, into a situation, into someone's life, into a ministry.
SPEAKER_00: It's carrying something.
SPEAKER_00: It's carrying seed for sowing.
SPEAKER_00: And the Hebrew word is this: carrying a precious possession to be sowed into the ground.
SPEAKER_00: You are carrying holy seed.
SPEAKER_00: You are carrying something so precious, which is the word of God, the instruction to you, the calling to you, whether it's in prayer, whether it's in giving, whether it whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00: It's his promises, it's his truths, it's his commands, it's his instructions.
SPEAKER_00: That's our seed.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus gave us the parable of the sower in Matthew 13.
SPEAKER_00: It's costly.
SPEAKER_00: It's the thing that cost you something that cost you time meditating on it, understanding the word.
SPEAKER_00: What cost you time in prayer, what cost you time in faithfulness and effort.
SPEAKER_00: That's our seed.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's precious.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's expensive.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not to be recovered.
SPEAKER_00: You don't go pick up the seed again.
SPEAKER_00: You sowed it.
SPEAKER_00: You gave that money.
SPEAKER_00: It's given.
SPEAKER_00: You spent that time praying, it's done.
SPEAKER_00: You set time aside to go deep in the word.
SPEAKER_00: You're not getting that time back.
SPEAKER_00: It's sowed.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, what's coming back is harvest.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus talked about the cost of following him.
SPEAKER_00: He talked about taking up a cross to follow him, and that is carrying precious seed.
SPEAKER_00: Mark 10, verse 27 says this.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus looked at them and said, With men it's impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are possible.
SPEAKER_00: Then Peter began to say to him, See, we've left all and followed you.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus answered and said, Assuredly I say to you, there is no one who's left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the gospels, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecution and in the age to come eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: But many who are first will be last and the last first.
SPEAKER_00: What's he talking about?
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about this sowing in obedience.
SPEAKER_00: He's not talking about family breakup, he's talking about the cost that there's time you could have just kind of hung out.
SPEAKER_00: Time you could have just been doing what you felt like.
SPEAKER_00: Resources you could have just hung on to.
SPEAKER_00: Time vested in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And it's bringing forth abundance.
SPEAKER_00: In 2 Corinthians 4, verse 7 it says this we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
SPEAKER_00: We're hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed.
SPEAKER_00: We are perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
SPEAKER_00: That sowing and reaping.
SPEAKER_00: Fasting's a beautiful example.
SPEAKER_00: You intentionally invest that time, that cost for a harvest you yet to see.
SPEAKER_00: Giving is a beautiful example.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer, beautiful example.
SPEAKER_00: That the life of Jesus would be manifested in us.
SPEAKER_00: We want that life.
SPEAKER_00: We want that life, that resurrection life manifested in us.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul is very clear that comes with a laying down, with a sewing.
SPEAKER_00: Go back to Psalm 126, verse five.
SPEAKER_00: It says, doubtless they will come.
SPEAKER_00: I love that word.
SPEAKER_00: Doubtless they will come.
SPEAKER_00: Doubtless you'll come back from everything you've sowed.
SPEAKER_00: Everything you've sowed, doubtless you'll come back rejoicing.
SPEAKER_00: Triumphant, singing, proclaiming, carrying sheaves.
SPEAKER_00: You carry multiplication.
SPEAKER_00: You carry joy.
SPEAKER_00: You carry abundance.
SPEAKER_00: You want a bigger harvest?
SPEAKER_00: Then you need to look for more land to sow.
SPEAKER_00: I learned this from Joel.
SPEAKER_00: A few years ago, he was saying, For what God wants to do, he was talking about finances, but it's true in everything.
SPEAKER_00: Time, prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He said, for what God wants to do, he showed me I need this much money.
SPEAKER_00: So I need to sow.
SPEAKER_00: And to be able to sow, you need to find some land.
SPEAKER_00: And so he was like, his prayer was, God, show me the land to sow into.
SPEAKER_00: Show me what I can sow into, where I can sew into, who I can sew into.
SPEAKER_00: And it really caught my attention because it was like, it's like the prayer wasn't, God, just give us that money that we need for your purposes.
SPEAKER_00: It was like, so where do I sow?
SPEAKER_00: Give me some land.
SPEAKER_00: Show me some people to sow into.
SPEAKER_00: Show me how to give more.
SPEAKER_00: Show me where I can just lavish that land with seed.
SPEAKER_00: Because doubtless you'll come back with harvest.
SPEAKER_00: Doubtless.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a process.
SPEAKER_00: How can we eke out a bit more time in devotion and prayer with him?
SPEAKER_00: How can we just shuffle a little bit more?
SPEAKER_00: How can we just yield a little bit more to his word?
SPEAKER_00: How can we pour a little bit more money into the kingdom?
SPEAKER_00: How can we just pour ourselves out?
SPEAKER_00: How can we pour out a little bit more hospitality?
SPEAKER_00: You want angelic activity in your life?
SPEAKER_00: One of the doorways is hospitality.
SPEAKER_00: Says so.
SPEAKER_00: In Peter, I think.
SPEAKER_00: How do we serve a bit more?
SPEAKER_00: It's intentional.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the reasons why we refuse to give a pep talk before taking up an offering.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not interested in guilting you into giving.
SPEAKER_00: I'm interested in a people that are so vested in giving.
SPEAKER_00: Galatians 6, verse 6 says this.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to rejoice in this.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to, this is part of our glory, is that we're not wondering if there'll be fruit.
SPEAKER_00: We're not wondering if God will do something.
SPEAKER_00: Galatians 6, verse 6, let him who has taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches, do not be deceived, God is not mocked.
SPEAKER_00: For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
SPEAKER_00: For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption.
SPEAKER_00: But he who sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life.
SPEAKER_00: And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
SPEAKER_00: God knows exactly what we've sought.
SPEAKER_00: He knows exactly what we've poured ourselves into.
SPEAKER_00: Who we've bothered to show kindness to when it was costly.
SPEAKER_00: Where we've chosen excellence in our workplace when we could have done mediocre.
SPEAKER_00: When we've served when it's we were tired.
SPEAKER_00: When we've loved when we've had our own issues.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that you have so much power?
SPEAKER_00: You get to decide.
SPEAKER_00: You get to purpose in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: How much you want a steward?
SPEAKER_00: It's up to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's like how much of God do you want?
SPEAKER_00: It's up to you.
SPEAKER_00: There's a doorway that stands open in heaven in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Anything's possible.
SPEAKER_00: Anything is possible.
SPEAKER_00: There's no limitation from the Father.
SPEAKER_00: It's how much we want to sow.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to end reading you this thing.
SPEAKER_00: I read it on Instagram.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know who Ian Simpkins is, but I like what he says.
SPEAKER_00: And he wrote this, and it really caught my attention.
SPEAKER_00: There's a really interesting passage in the book of James that has a detail I didn't notice for years.
SPEAKER_00: It reads, Elijah was a human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years.
SPEAKER_00: Then when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah prayed it wouldn't rain and it didn't for three and a half years.
SPEAKER_00: Then he prayed it would and it did.
SPEAKER_00: But something else happened.
SPEAKER_00: Crops grew.
SPEAKER_00: If crops grew when the rain came, that suggests there were seeds in the ground.
SPEAKER_00: The story suggests that farmers were still sowing seeds in the dry dirt.
SPEAKER_00: Even though there was no rain, they kept planting.
SPEAKER_00: Faith trusts the farmer more than the forecast.
SPEAKER_00: Faith often looks unreasonable until things start to grow.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but prayer can sometimes feel like this for me, like I'm sowing seeds in the desert.
SPEAKER_00: But I've learned that often when it feels like nothing is happening physically, there is plenty that's happening spiritually, even if I can't see it yet.
SPEAKER_00: What fields buried might actually be planted.
SPEAKER_00: Personally, I want to have seeds already in the ground when the rain comes.
SPEAKER_00: Don't just pray for rain, prepare for it.
SPEAKER_00: Faith doesn't start when the clouds form, it starts when the soil cracks.
SPEAKER_00: Keep sowing, friend.
SPEAKER_00: And I just loved it because it's like we need the seed there before the rain.
SPEAKER_00: Just before that story, James writes in verse five, verse ten the effective, fervent prayer of righteous people makes lots of power available.
SPEAKER_00: It's a lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: I want you just to just reach out to someone near you.
SPEAKER_00: I just want you to pray for them.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're in this journey together.
SPEAKER_00: If you need to shuffle around, move next to someone, that's fine.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to pray.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to pray that God would open up vision to them of the harvests He has for them.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to pray that they would begin to see what the Lord wants to do through them and with them.
SPEAKER_00: Through their prayer, through their time, through their resources.
SPEAKER_00: And that they would begin to see that harvest, the richness of that harvest.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just take a few minutes, just pray fervently for them.
SPEAKER_00: Pray that they would see the harvest that God has in their workplace, in their family, in their neighborhood, in another nation, whatever it is, in whatever ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Just let them see.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we ask for the spirit of revelation to open up our minds now.
SPEAKER_00: That we'd get vision for abundance in what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00: That it may be sowing a lot of time into that process, a lot of resource, a lot of cost.
SPEAKER_00: But we'd see, we'd see what's coming, we'd believe what's coming.
SPEAKER_00: Like the farmers who are putting one and a half million dollars into the ground and wait.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just pray.
SPEAKER_00: If you see something, share it.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a prophetic word, share it.
SPEAKER_00: Just encourage each other.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Lord, be exalted in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Fill us, God.
SPEAKER_00: Fill what we put our hands to.
SPEAKER_00: Fill fill our lives, God.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, those hours of study, those hours serving, those hours praying, whatever it is, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Give us vision.
SPEAKER_00: We say yes to the cost.
SPEAKER_00: We say yes.
SPEAKER_00: We say yes to all that you ask of us.
SPEAKER_00: We say yes.
SPEAKER_00: When it hurts, we say yes.
SPEAKER_00: Because we know that joy is set before us.