When you think about it, sowing seed and then reaping a harvest is all about multiplication. You sow one seed, you reap a hundred. But the extent, the quantum of the multiplication factor, has an awful lot to do with the way that we sow the seed in the first place.   Lord of the Harvest Over the last few weeks we have been working our way through a series called, “Reaping God’s Harvest in My Life”. A couple of weeks ago we looked at how Isaac sowed seed in the middle of a drought and reaped a harvest. And again last week we looked at figuring out exactly what the drought is about because sometimes we go through seasons of drought; seasons where we’re not experiencing God’s blessing the way we should be and we think, “God what’s going on? Why am I going through this? And sometimes Dad is trying to get our attention. Sometimes God knows there’s something wrong in our lives; we’ve rebelled in this area, maybe with our finances or maybe we’re living in un-forgiveness or maybe we are living in some sort of rebellion. Maybe we are not spending the time with God that we need to be and God thinks, “I love my child so much, it’s time to get his attention; it’s time to get her attention,” and so we start going through this drought thing and … “God, what’s going on?" And we need to figure out what that drought is about. Those seasons of drought are very important times because there’s power in sowing seeds of faith during the drought. The power comes from the faith that we place in God and His desire to bless us. So if you’ve missed those couple of programs, you can actually purchase this series on CD, because it’s one of those teaching series that I believe all need to experience so that we know what it is to live with the Lord of the harvest; so we know what it is to reap God’s harvest in my life. This week we are going to take a closer look at two things. The first one is – what exactly is God’s harvest? I mean, how do we know when we are in harvest time? What does God’s harvest look like? Good question! And the second one is the importance of not only sowing seeds of faith but looking at how we sow those seeds. I’m really excited about being together today because when we speak about God’s harvest, we’re talking about His grace and His power and I hope you’re excited too, so stick with me over the next twenty minutes or so. Jesus called God "The Lord of the Harvest" and the notion of sowing and reaping, is one of those consistent principles that we find right through the Scriptures; Old Testament and New Testament – it’s a pretty straightforward proposition. You buy some seed, you put it in the ground, you wait for the rain and the sun and it grows into a plant that gives you more seeds. You don’t sow, you don’t reap the harvest! The question is: is it worth sowing in the first place? I mean, why should we bother? Going out and buying seed – it costs money. Sowing seed in the ground is hard work. You know, it’s not always convenient to sow seeds. When God says to us: “Go and forgive that person,” it’s not always convenient. We don’t always want to do it. Invariably, when God says: “Sow seed", it involves some form of sacrifice. It involves something that we really don’t want to do. And so it’s not unreasonable to say, “Well, do I really want to sow seed? Maybe this drought thing isn’t so bad. Maybe I can just survive it on my own. Cor … sowing seed, taking a risk, spending money, spending emotional energy and then God has this crazy idea, instead of feeding my need, He wants me to plant His seed somewhere else. Oh, I don’t know.” So when we are making a decision as to whether we should plant this seed; whether we should experience seed time and harvest, we have to weigh these things up. On the one hand we look at the cost of the seed, the effort of sowing, the risk of loss and on the other hand, we look at the value of the harvest. We balance those two things and we think: is it worth it? So what does God’s harvest look like? Is God’s harvest about money and a big house and a nice car? We all have physical needs – there’s not doubt – and you may be listening; you may be someone who has really acute, physical needs. This program goes all over the world. This program is listened to by wealthy people and people who don’t have enough food to eat. God is in those physical things. God wants to meet our needs but we all know that when the physical provision – the food, the shelter, the security, the money – when it gets to a certain level, to meet our need, after that all the other luxuries, all the other things are lovely and nice and they’re wonderful icing on the cake, but they’re not the things that ultimately satisfy us. They’re not the things that fill us up. So what does God’s harvest look like? Well, Paul, the Apostle, in Romans chapter 14, verse 17, he wrote this; he said, “The Kingdom of God is not about food or drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Now remember, Jesus taught that we should ask God for our daily bread. God is into our physical needs, but what Paul is saying here is: Beyond all of that, come on, let’s get it straight – the Kingdom of God, the reign of God in our lives, is not ultimately about physical things. It’s not ultimately about food or drink, even though God’s heart is to provide for us and God does provide for us. The main game,” says Paul “is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Righteousness is that sense of completion and goodness that we have when we know, we know, we know that what Jesus did for us on the cross has made us whole, has given us forgiveness, has given us a clean slate and when we live out that goodness and that righteousness as God’s Word calls us, we experience a peace and a joy in the Holy Spirit that words can’t, can’t describe. I mean, peace – who doesn‘t want that? Who doesn’t want the deep, powerful, wonderful peace; the peace of knowing no matter what happens in life, I’m going to be ok? Who doesn’t want that? Who doesn’t want joy; the free gift that God puts in our hearts, through the Holy Spirit? Now that’s a harvest! Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If we were all reaping that sort of harvest in every part of our lives, the rest wouldn’t matter, would it? Let me ask you: righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit – is your harvest abundant in those areas? Are you full, overflowing type of harvest or do you want to come up higher in the harvest? Do you want more righteousness; do you want more peace; do you want more joy; do you want to experience God’s goodness more and more? I know that I want that! In a sense, I can’t have more righteousness than I already have because it’s all done for me on the cross. I’m free – I’ve got eternal life but, we want to live that out too, don’t we? We want to see our lives change to be like that; to experience the peace. So, food and drink; the physical stuff is fine but that’s not really the main game. Its righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit – that’s life. How do we get that? How do we experience that?   Give and It Will be Given Well, we are talking today about reaping God’s harvest and we saw before, that the main game in the Kingdom of God is not food and drink; it’s not physical things, even though God wants to provide for us, its righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Oh, fabulous; now that is a harvest worth having! The question is, exactly how do we sow in order to reap that sort of a harvest – of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit? It’s a good question and it’s a question that Jesus answered directly. If you have a Bible, open it at Luke chapter 6, verses 37 and 38. Let’s have a read. This is what Jesus said. He said: Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you, a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap, for the measure with which you give, will be the measure with which you get back. Now, often you hear the second verse; the bit about "the good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap", you hear that in terms of God’s financial blessing. I’ve often heard it used that way. Now, do I believe God blesses a giver? Absolutely, yes I do! And we’ll look at that later in this program. But that’s not what Jesus is talking about here. He’s talking about three things – He says, “Do not judge and you will not be judged, don’t condemn and you won’t be condemned, forgive and you will be forgiven. Give like this and it will be given to you, a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap. With whatever measure you give that’s the measure with which you will receive." Judgment, condemnation and forgiveness - if we give these in the right way then we’ll get back in the same way. Isn’t it interesting? He’s talking about some really interesting concepts here – judgement, well that’s criticism and bitterness. That’s when I judge you and I demand recompense because you have wronged me. I judge you because you’ve got some weakness and I think, “You just have to fix this, you owe me buddy.” You know, I need my pound of flesh from you – that’s judgement and when I judge you it hurts and when you judge me, it hurts. Question: do you like being around judgmental people? Are they your first choice to be close friends? Well, obviously not, but we all love to judge and what we do is we focus on people’s failings and ignore all their good points. That’s what judgement is and Jesus said: “Do not judge and you will not be judged.” How is it, that we stop judging? Well, the only way I figured out is to let people’s weaknesses and failures wash by me; go right through to the keeper. It doesn’t mean that I’m not aware of the strengths and weaknesses of people, but instead of getting all tied up in knots about someone’s weaknesses and getting all tied up in knots about their failings and getting all tied up in knots about things that are never going to change – because that’s the way they are – we can compensate for those weaknesses. We can lift them up; we can bless them, right? Now that is hard sometimes, it is really, really hard but we’ve got to stop judging. You want righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit? Well, righteousness and peace and joy don’t happen when we are out busy doing something Jesus said, “Don’t do”. Righteousness and peace and joy don’t happen when we are busy doing things that ruin the peace and "judgement" ruins the peace. The second thing Jesus says, "don’t do" is, “Don’t condemn.” It’s the next step after judgement. Condemnation is when we write them off, “that’s it, I’ve had enough. I’m not dealing with that person any more.” And we shut ourselves off, don’t we? We do that; we write them off and we condemn them. It’s like a death sentence to the relationship. “Instead,” said Jesus, “forgive and you will be forgiven.” Forgiveness is giving up our right of anger and retribution and getting even and condemnations. Forgiveness is wiping the slate clean, forgiveness is making peace. Forgiveness says, “That person who wronged me has exactly the same standing with me as though they had never done what they did.” Does that sound vaguely familiar? Because that’s what Jesus purchased for us on the cross with His life and He’s calling us to exactly the same thing. Judgement and condemnation are enemies of the harvest of righteousness and peace and joy. They are in direct opposition and Jesus is saying, “Instead forgive, instead sow good seed; faith-seed into the harvest field,” and that is hard some days, right? It is hard to forgive, it is hard to let people’s weaknesses wash by, it is hard not to criticise them, it hurts not to condemn them – do it anyway, ‘cause Jesus asks us to, ‘cause Jesus did it with His life. We are going to talk more about exactly that this next week. Let’s look at it again. Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you, a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. Imagine a good measure of forgiveness, a good measure of peace, a good measure of joy, will be given to you, pressed down, shaken up, flowing over will be put into your lap and it depends on whether we sow seeds of judgment and condemnation because if that’s what we sow, that’s what we’ll get. That’s what Jesus is saying. You sow those things and that’s what you will get back. You sow forgiveness and that’s what you’ll get back – seeds of righteousness and goodness and forgiveness, but it turns out that how we sow, how we give, the intention of our hearts, counts too.   God’s Multiplication Factor When you think about it, sowing and reaping is about multiplication. You take one grain of wheat, you put it in the ground, you plant it, you water it, the sun shines on it and that head of wheat has fifty or a hundred grains of wheat on it. But how we give; the heart with which we give, impacts on God’s multiplication factor. Again, if you have a Bible, flick it open to Second Corinthians chapter 9, verses 6 to 10. This is what the Apostle Paul writes. He says: The point is this, the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and the one who sows bountifully will also read bountifully. Now, let me just say that this is the context – he’s going around and he’s talking to the church in Corinth about raising money for the church in Jerusalem because there’s a famine happening in Jerusalem and they’re all starving. And so Paul is going around to the different churches that he was involved in – that he either planted or that he had ministered at – raising money for Christians in Jerusalem who are starving in the famine. Which is amazing in itself, because these are the people who ultimately end up locking him up and sending him to Rome where he was killed. Anyway, that’s the context he is talking about it in. He’s talking about giving money. The point is this – “the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly, not under compulsion, because God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing, in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. As it is written, He scatters abroad, He gives to the poor, His righteousness endures forever. He, who supplies the seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” Powerful stuff! Look at it! Let’s just break it down for a minute. Verse 6, he says: If you sow sparingly, you will reap sparingly and if you sow bountifully, you will reap bountifully. In other words, if you sow one seed, you might reap a hundred, you sow fifty seeds, you might reap five thousand, you sow a hundred seeds, and you’ll reap then thousand. The more we sow, the more we reap. How much should I sow, how? And he says, “I’m not going to put a guilt trip on you. Make up your mind – make up your mind with God as to how much you should sow. And I always encourage people, you know, when they are giving to God’s work, when they are giving to the poor, get with the Holy Spirit, get with God and say, “God, I just feel you calling me to give to this particular work that you are doing in someone’s life right now. How much do you want me to give?” Because that is between God and His child – God and the giver – God and the sower. It’s God that gives, so we need to get with God and say, “God what do you want me to give?” But how? How should we sow? Look at verse 7 of chapter 9 of Second Corinthians: Each of you must give as you have made up your mind to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. God loves a cheerful giver! When someone come to you and gives you something begrudgingly, do you enjoy that? Is that great fun? No! It’s awful, isn’t it, when someone gives grudgingly, it’s really awful? God wants us to give out of the abundance of our hearts – God wants us to give out of joy and peace and wanting to be there willingly. God’s like that. Now look again at the harvest, verse 8, it says that: God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you will always have enough; so that you’ll always be able to give out of your abundance. Not just money but righteousness, peace and joy and look at verse 10 – I love this bit: For he who supplies the seed to the sower and the bread for food, will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. So Paul is making a link here between – I’m calling you, I’m asking you to give to the people who are starving in Jerusalem, but in doing that; in planting that Spiritual seed, the money for the starving; the money for his ministry – maybe in our lives, the money to help someone poor or someone at church or someone who’s struggling – a friend or family – you sow a seed like that and you’re not just giving money, you’re sowing a seed that will bear a harvest of righteousness. God will take that – you’re sowing one field where God calls you to sow and He, all of a sudden, brings harvest to all these other parts of our lives. And the same is true in other areas. If God says, “I am calling you to forgive this person,” and we struggle and we finally forgive and we obey God, God brings a harvest of blessing into a whole bunch of other parts of our lives. Why wouldn’t He? He’s God, He can do that. He loves us – He’s busting to bless us. That’s why He does this stuff and He calls us to sow our seed in His field, rather than feed our need, because He wants us to put Him first and He wants us to put our faith into the God who is the God of blessing. And Paul goes on in verses 11 and 12. He says: You will be enriched every way for your great generosity which will produce thanksgiving to God through us, for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God through the testing of this ministry, you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and by the generosity of your sharing with them in Jerusalem and all the others while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that He has given you. Thanks be to God for His indescribable blessing. In other words when we give it unlocks thanksgiving, it unlocks blessing, unlocks God’s grace and He just pours it out of heaven because He just delights when we give in faith, the way He’s calling us to give. Whether it be money or whether it be anything else that He is calling us to be obedient to in our lives. And sometimes we don’t see it as sowing seed but it’s exactly what it is. When we are obedient to God, we are sowing a Spiritual seed; we’re putting it in the ground. God does something amazing with it, the plant grows and there’s a harvest of a hundred fold. It’s God’s way. Can I encourage you? I just really feel the talk about forgiveness, right now - maybe you’re listening and you are holding onto some un-forgiveness in your heart, I encourage you to listen to God’s Word and to plant a Spiritual seed and forgive that person and God will take that and use that and give the most amazing harvest out of that. Then how do we do it? Two ways – not sparingly but bountifully and it’s up to us and God. You know, when we forgive someone, we can go the whole hog and we can really forgive them but if we forgive them sparingly, well, it’s not really forgiveness, is it? And the second way is cheerfully – not grumbling, not whinging, not complaining – go the whole hog, lash out, do it cheerfully and joyfully, with a smile on our faces, even though planting seed is always about sacrifice. The Kingdom of God is not about food or drink but about righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. What a harvest! What an amazing notion, that we can go and plant seed into God’s Spiritual field, simply by being obedient to what He’s calling us to do – even when it’s not convenient, even when it’s tough, even when we don’t feel like it, even when the flesh says, “No, no, I don’t want to do it,” just do it. Because when we plant that seed in God’s field, His plan is to bless it and to grow a harvest that we can scarcely even imagine, so sow the seed in the field that God is calling you to plant it in and with everything that is in me, let me say, that the God of righteousness, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, is just busting to bless you with the most amazing harvest, because that’s who He is. Go on, sow the seed!

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