Planting Season

Untitled Document

Text: Mark 4:3-9

Title: Planting Season

Introduction

            A new year, new hope, new challenges, new vision, and a new planting season, and after all these we are looking forward that everything will be fruitful. How a farmer starts and takes care of his farm? First, he plants, and then he waters the plants, then add some fertilizers, take care of them while they grow, protect them from pests, and wait until it reaches its maturity when they are able to bear fruit. When the harvest time comes, he reaps what he sows.

            Today, we will be talking about planting and becoming a farmer. We will be talking about principles and facts in planting in comparison to our church and how a church should plant a church. Mark 4:3-9 teaches us facts about planting.

            In planting there are two main things that are very important in order that you will be able to have a good harvest. First, we need good seeds and then a good soil.

The Good Seed

            The very first thing that we need in order to have a good harvest is to have a good seed.  

Take note here that the passage does not talk about the seed but the soil. However, it is understood that the good seed here stands for the “good news” or the “gospel”.

            In actual farming, the farmer usually takes time in choosing the good seed that they need. I still remember when I was still in high school, I have seen farmers who bought high breed rice variety from IRRI for them to have a good harvest when time comes This is definitely true until now. Farmers choose good seed.

            We have to remember that good seed produces good fruit while bad seed produces bad fruits. Meaning, if we plant a defective seed, our chances of a good harvest is very low. Or otherwise, we will never harvest at all.

            This principle is the same in our church. In church planting, we are planting good seed which stands for the gospel of Christ. This is why we study the word of the Lord carefully and this is what we teach and pass on to others. For aside from this fact, all other seeds are bad. This is why cultic churches produced cultic people because other people planted seeds that are defective.   

            The principle is very simple; you cannot harvest an apple when you plant an orange seed. What you will harvest is also an apple. This is the same in Christianity. If we plant the gospel that is from the Bible, we will harvest a Bible believing people. If we plant a tradition which is not from the Bible, then we will harvest a tradition focused people. If we plant false teachings, we will harvest false teachers.

            This is why we train leaders to be more responsible in handling the word so that they will not be planting false teachings. In addition to this, their lives should also be testimony that they have the good seed. They have to exemplify what they teach for their life is a part of the seed that they are planting.

15“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.   Matthew 7:15

The Good Soil

            Secondly, a good seed will still be useless if you planted the seed in a bad soil. To make it clear, good seeds need to have good soil and vice versa in order to have a good harvest. You cannot have a good harvest if either one is bad. Both of them should always go together in order to have a good harvest. In our passage, the soil stands for the hearts of men.

In the passage, there are 4 different kinds of soil that were mentioned.

1. Soil in the way side (v.4). This soil is near the road where birds can easily see them. This is why the seeds that fell on this soil were eaten by birds. When the people heard the word of the Lord, Satan comes immediately and took it away from their hearts (v.15).

This is the same in the ministry. This is the reason why when we share the gospel, there will be some people who will recognize the truth but will not live by it and that they are as good as those people who have not heard the word of the Lord. These are the people that even after we shared the gospel, they still went on their way.

2. Stony ground (v.5). There were some plants that can grow on stony grounds. But definitely, plants find it hard to grow in those areas. The roots cannot or will have difficulty in penetrating the stony grounds. When the sun is up, it kills the plant with its scorching heat. When the people heard the gospel, they accepted it with gladness but because there were no roots in them, when tribulation and trials came that arises from the gospel, they stumbled away (v16-17).

Similarly to what is continuously happening as we try to look back on the people that we are ministering. Some of them after being with us for a while, when persecution started and trials arrived in their lives, they stopped going to church and went back to what they used to live. Sad to say, we will be meeting people like these in the field. The Bible says, it is a stony ground.

 

3. Soil with thorny plants (v.7). The seed can definitely grow but it will not and cannot bear fruits. We all know that when we have plants we have to remove the weeds around them. Unfortunately in this case, thorns and weeds were not removed and thus, choked the plants while they are growing. When people heard the gospel, they grab it and accepted it. Unfortunately, the wealth, pleasures, and worldly desires choked the gospel completely in their lives that it was not able to bear its fruits (v.18-19).

This one is equally true wherever we go. There will be people that after hearing the gospel, but because of the concerns, love, and priority of what the world dictates, the seed where not able to grow in them. This is very common to the rich people that even Jesus recognized it; “For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”  (Luke 18:24-25). Of course we can find people in the lower level to be like this but this is very true to those who were wealthy.

4. Good soil (v.8). The best soil and the most suitable soil for plants.  When the people heard the gospel, they received it all in their hearts and it bear fruit, some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred (v.20)

If the three above is true to our church, the fourth is also true. We can find people that have bear fruit. Just like the apostles of Jesus Christ, they bear much fruit when Jesus has gone to heaven. The fruit that has been taught here also pertains to the people whom you lead to Jesus Christ after receiving the gospel. And this is definitely what the Lord Jesus wants from us, to bear fruit.  How many of us here in this church have a heart like this “good soil” where the seed (the gospel) were able to grow and bear its fruit? Have we brought someone to Christ?

            Brothers and sisters, most of the churches in our days are more concern in attracting people to the church rather than going out and reaching the lost. And perhaps in the previous years our church is one of those churches. But right now, God is calling us to realign our purpose, our vision, to go out, to be one of the harvesters in the field. Year 2008 is the time to get up and become both harvesters and sowers. We are to sow the seed that comes from the Lord and harvest them in no time.



Good Soil Identified

Neil Cole the author of the “Organic Church” identified examples of good soils and bad soils from the Bible.

Good Soils:

1. Bad People (Luke 5:32). “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”


2. Poor People (James 2:5) “Listen my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?”


3. Young People (Matthew 18:3) “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”


4. Those searching for God like the occults and in other religions (Matthew 7:7) “Ask and you shall find”


5. Uneducated and powerless people (1 Corinthians 1:27) “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong.”


6. The insignificant, the discriminated against, and the nobodies (1 Corinthians 1:28-29) “And the based things of the world and the despised…” “God has chosen, things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that nom an should boast before God.”

Bad Soils

1. Intellectuals, people of influence, and those of high social status (1 Corinthians 1:26) “For consider your calling, brethren that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble.”


2. Good “moral” people (Luke 5:31-32) “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”


3. Wealthy people (Luke 18:24-25) “How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

It must be understood however, that these classification is not absolute but this is the picture of most cases. For example, there were some wealthy people who were follower of Jesus Christ, like Joseph of Arimethea and Barnabas. Some were also smart like Paul himself, Luke the physician, and Matthew. John Wesley was also known to be a righteous man even before he became a Christian. Comparing this however to the total percentages of its population, the ratio is very low.

Conclusion

            As we face this year, it is the deepest prayer of the leadership of the church along with our prayer warriors that all of us will become fruitful in this coming year. The Lord is calling us now to bear fruit, to tell someone and bring him to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our church right now is moving towards bearing fruits. We are dreaming and pursuing fruitfulness in our ministries. We are training people in order to bear fruit although despite of these efforts, only some have responded to the Lord’s call. Why? I don’t know. One thing I know right now, God is calling harvesters in the field to harvest what was sown.

            If we believe that there is a good seed that is planted in our hearts that seed ought to bear fruit. And if that seed does not nor cannot bear fruit, in accordance to the Bible it fell on bad soil. Now let us examine ourselves, did we ever brought someone to Christ? Was the planted seed in our hearts bearing fruit? If not, the seed which the gospel fell on a barren soil which is our heart. It is up to you then to see if your heart is a barren soil.

To those who have ears, let them hear.