May 9, 2025 • 47 mins
Life would be a lot easier if we always knew what to do and how to do it, but God rarely works that way. In this message, set yourself free from the “need to know” and learn how to find peace in the process.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our
podcast and I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving
in your life.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Enjoy the message, Mark four twenty six.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
He also said, this is what the Kingdom of God
is like a man scattered seed on the ground night
and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed
sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
All by itself.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
The soil produces grain, first the stalk, then the head,
then the full kernel in the head. God knows the
order in which things need to happen in our lives,
and trusting him is in one sense, just allowing him
to do not only what he wants to do, but
(00:55):
when he wants to do it. Touch somebody say there's
an order to this. That's what we preached about last
week from Mark three, and we said that when you
get things out of.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Order, they stop working.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So that's why spending your money before you tithe is
a bad idea, because it's out of.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Order too early, too soon.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
That's why sex before marriage is a dangerous proposition. Too much,
too soon. Now he doesn't value you. Instead, he objectifies you.
And there's an order to things. There's an order to things.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
My time with God goes a lot better if I
start with thank you for what you've already done. I
got some things I need, I've got some unresolved issues
that I.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Want to bring before you.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
But first of all, God, I just want to thank
you because somebody's lying on a ventilator this morning, and
I have breath in my body, and you said, let
everything that has breadth.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Praise the Lord, and I got breath to praise you with.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
So God, right now, in spite of how I feel
on what I'm going through, I just want to give
you about sixteen seconds of praise. There's an order, there's
an order, and then comes the result as soon verse
(02:31):
twenty nine. As the grain is ripe, he puts the
sickle to it, and some of us put the sickle
to stuff too soon before it has the chance to
take root. And we spend money to impress people, and
because we don't know when to use what God has
(02:52):
given us, we end up ruining the very provision anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I'm just reading scriptures, has nothing to do with my sermon.
But I'll be honest with you. When I walked around
the corner, Valentine was singing like they love Jesus, and
I just got excited and the Holy Spirit just kicked
me into gear. So as soon as the grain is right,
he puts the sickle to it because the harvest has come.
But the real focus of this message is going to
(03:21):
be verse twenty seven B and twenty eight A. It
says the seed sprouts and grows night and day, whether
he sleeps or gets up. The seed sprouts and grows,
though he does not know how, and that's the key phrase.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
He does not know how.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
And then it says, all by itself, the soil produces grain.
And so to me, that made me think about grace,
and that made me think about God's sovereignty, and that
made me wonder, if I'm staying up stressing about stuff,
if I would get out of my own way and
let God deal with it the way that he knows
(04:05):
how to deal with things, I would be so much
better off, you know. So what I came to tell
you today. This is my sermon. Title is let the
dirt do its work. You may be seated. Let's work
on the scripture for a moment. I did preach from
this passage two years ago, and at.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
That time I was.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Taken by the temporal implications of this text and the
timing of God. I believe the title I gave that
little message was called the Seed is on schedule, and
I was using it to illustrate how things in our
life in some ways show up. Like the wise teacher
said that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
(04:52):
That's what I was trying to say two years ago.
And in the last two years, either this text has
gotten better.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I'm being sarcastic.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
The text didn't change, but God has opened my eyes
to see it in a little different way. And since
we been going through Mark's Gospel very slowly at a
leisurely stroll, to talk about savage Jesus, and all I
keep hearing from people as I see you out and
about is don't stop preaching savage Jesus. This series, just
keep keep it going until the rapture. And I don't
(05:26):
know about that, but I thought we should at least
take one parable and Mark gives us so much about
the context of Jesus ministry, but we also want to
take a moment now and pause and look at some
of the content of his ministry, and we see that
his teaching is creating opposition at the same time that
it is making an impact.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
By the way, that's always the case. Everything that makes
impact creates opposition.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
You know that, right if the devil touch somebody say,
if the devil is in messing with you, he doesn't
consider you a threat. So we've seen now five different
examples of controversy in the ministry of Jesus, which makes
me want to go back and have a conversation again.
(06:13):
One pastor, I said, what's your goal in ministry?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
He said, my goal is that on the Wikipedia page.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
And he didn't have a Wikipedia page, but he said,
if I have a Wikipedia page, this is already weird
hypothetical Wikipedia page.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Is your goal for ministry?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
He said, I hope there's no controversy section. He said
that was his main goal in ministry. By that standard,
Jesus Christ was the ultimate ministry failure.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Why are you looking shocked? What do you think the
cross was? You think it was jewelry.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
You think, you think, you think the cross was a
celebratory moment. The Roman Empire used that tool to torture
people who represented a threat. And everywhere Jesus went people
were threatened. The Pharisees, the teachers of the law, they
were threatened by Jesus. He was upsetting their entire system.
Were you here last week? Their entire system was being
(07:13):
overturned by.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
The things he was speaking and the things he was doing.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Not only that, but the demons were threatened by Jesus
every time he got in the presence of an impure
spirit and started shrieking and convulsing and begging and falling.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Down at his feet.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Is a funny thing, because the demons knew better who
Jesus was than the teachers of the law did. Isn't
that crazy? The demons saw Jesus and they fell down
at his feet. The teachers of the law saw Jesus
and they crossed their arms to judge him. Sometimes we
should be more like the demons than we should be
like the religious people. At least the demons knew this
(07:51):
guy's in charge. At least the demons knew he has
all power. At least the demons knew. He's not ordinary,
he's not average, he's not common.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
This is the son of God.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I wonder do we really worship him today? I wonder
do we really regard him as the supreme authority in
our lives?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Or is he just an accessory. This is what we've
been studying, and.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It all fits within the context all of the controversy
and all of the compassion of Jesus. They were both
growing together. Both grow together, the wheat and the terrorist.
That's when parable Jesus used, it's not our parable today,
but he was talking about the wheat grows and right
beside it all the weeds grow that want to choke
(08:42):
out the wheat. And what we tend to want to
do that is reflected in that parable in Matthew thirteen
is to separate the weeds from the wheat. But Jesus said,
both grow together. They have to. It's an eschatological principle
that he's using to talk about the harvest at the
end of the age, but it also has practical implications
(09:02):
in our lives that both grow together. As God is
drawing you into a deeper relationship and a more consistent
communion with him, there will also be a more consistent
sense of conflict to accompany the communion, because both grow together.
Don't be confused about it, and don't try to separate
(09:22):
what you think is the good stuff from what you
think is the bad stuff, because God uses both in
our life. The tears he uses for our humility so
that we will trust him, and the weed he uses
for our sustenance so that He can sustain us and
bless us, and both grow together. Now, with that context established,
(09:46):
we have a parable Jesus taught in parables. Mark shares
here several of them. Remember he's not compiling these in
the order that they happen. He's giving us a He's
giving us a how would I say it, a curated
account of the ministry of Jesus. And he's building for
(10:09):
us what he believes to be an accurate picture of
the purpose of the ministry of Jesus.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
And now Jesus is teaching us about.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
The nature of the Kingdom of God and our faith.
Maybe you've heard the parable of the different types of
soil that he starts with in Mark chapter four. He's
getting into this idea that there is always seed going forth.
God is always speaking to you. Stop asking God to
(10:39):
speak to you and start listening. It's the weirdest thing
we pray.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
God, speak to me, Speak to me, Speak to me,
Speak to me, Speak to me. If you'd shut up,
you'd hear that.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I already am. So the seed's always going forth. But
while my Bible calls it the parable of the sower,
it's really the parable of the soils. It's really about
our hearts. The soil is our soul, our mind, our will,
and our emotions. And in this passage he shares with
us how there are some seeds that fall on the path,
(11:14):
and the birds come and snatch them up. How many
of you have some seed snatchers in your life? Joy
Joy thieves, people who want to ruin your day.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And it's not nine thirty yet, and here they come.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
How many you have some seed snatching apps on your phone?
You know that one with the bird. What's it called twitter?
Jesus said? Jesus said, the birds of the air will
snatch the seed and grab your attention, so that you
don't act on what you heard, but you forget what
you heard. Because a lot of us have a stash
(11:49):
of seed.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
That we've never put in the ground.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
We've gotten to be professional seed collectors who know how
to highlight our Bibles and fill notebooks with information. But
without application, without soili, the seed only represents unused potential.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
And to me, that's a sad thing.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Woldn't be sad for God to show you in heaven
how much seed you sat on while you were here
on earth. Do not merely listen to the word. Instead,
do what it says. You are not blessed by the
word you hear, but the word that you do a
lot of times. If you think we need to know more,
(12:30):
I found out that I already know enough. Let me
give a few examples. I know not to talk bad
about people. If I would just do that, I think
I'd be working seventy hours a week.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Just that that alone.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I know that I'm supposed to consider others as more
important than myself.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I know that, and you know that.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Touch somebody say you know this, and if you know
how to say man after it, you could say man
after But if you.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Don't know how, don't try to be embarrassing. You know this.
You know this.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
In fact, look back at him one more time. I
need your help, because everybody looks a little bit resistant
to this point. We always want to know more. You know,
I want to grow spiritually. Look back at him and say,
if you would do what you knew, you would grow
(13:31):
spiritual growth. It's always been a tricky concept to me
because I thought spiritual growth required more knowledge. And I
don't have many regrets in life, but I do have
a few. One thing I regret I wish I would
have written a parenting book before I.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Had my kids.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
It's just something I think about often. How some my
parenting book would have been if I had written it
before parenting, because the time that I knew the most
about parenting.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
You know what, I wish the same thing.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Here's another recred I wish I would have written a
book about being a pastor before I started this church.
It would have been so profound. It would have had
diagrams and informational concepts.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
It would have been it would have been seven hundred and.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Seventy three pages of how to be a pastor? And
then you showed up and screwed up all my theories
about how to be a pastor. People messed up my
ideas about how to be a pastor.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
What's up with that? Now? It would just be a pamphlet.
It wouldn't even it would just be illustrated.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
It would only have the whole book would be prayer,
you know, the emoji with the prayer hands. That would
be the whole How to be a parent, how to
be a pastor?
Speaker 1 (15:02):
But I knew so much.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
You notice, those are the people who give the most advice,
those with the least experience. When I went down, I
tell you what I would do if it were me.
And I know, I mean, I'm not judging. I'm just saying, now, okay,
(15:29):
so three things.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
It's right here in the text. I know you think
that I'm confuser loss. It's as that the farmer, this
is crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
The farmer who puts the seed in the ground, not
the seed on the shelf, but the seed in the soil.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
He let's look at the verse on the screen again, he.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Experiences the maturation of that seed, though he does not
know how.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
What kind of farmer is this?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
If you don't know how the seed grows, you could
at least google it.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
There you would.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Find that the seed needs what light or the correct
temperatures and water. Yeah, and then it needs to be
planted in the right place. I can tell you exactly
how the seed grows. That's exactly how it grows. I
can explain that to you. And so if the scripture
says this parable, which is always used to get us
(16:38):
beneath the surface to the deeper meaning, if the parable
is included in Jesus' illustration of what the Kingdom of
God is like, he said, this is what the Kingdom
is like, and now we're expecting something spectacular. Because the
Kingdom of God is a new concept, Jesus is the
first one to use this term. And since they are
(17:00):
not familiar with this particular concept, Jesus is giving them
an earthly illustration.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yet he does not talk about the.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Kingdom of God being like Wakanda. He does not talk
about the Kingdom of God being like a spaceship.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
He does not talk about the Kingdom of.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
God being like a rocket. Instead, he says, and this
must have been anti climactic for those who gathered to
hear his message on this day, the Kingdom is like
a seed.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And on this alone, we understand that often what.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
God does in our life will feel insignificant, and then
it will go into the soil where it will be invisible.
And that a lot of times when God is working
in our lives in the greatest ways. We won't even
know how He's working. We will be ignorant. That's three eyes.
It makes an outline. Write it down.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Three things about the Kingdom of God.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
It often sees, means insignificant, It often appears invisible.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
And often you feel ignorant. So the greatest proof that
you are growing in your relationship with.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
God is sometimes the fact that you don't feel like you.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Are growing in your relationship with God.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I'm sorry for everyone who always needs a goose bump
to feel.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Like God is with you.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
But sometimes the greatest growth in your life is not
going to be on the surface of your emotions, your feelings,
or your senses. Sometimes the deeper work that God will
do is much greater than the highest work.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
That God will do.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
For what is the building without the foundation? Jesus said,
the Kingdom is like this is.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Something so small, seemingly.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
So insignificant, and it goes through stages that are so invisible,
and a lot of the times you will feel so ignorant.
Like the farmer who puts the seed in the ground
and doesn't know when he'll see it again. Sure he
can water it, Sure he can plow the ground. Surely
we have a part to play in our relationship with God.
(19:15):
But there is this other element of faith that I
want to talk about today that I don't hear about enough,
and I'm hungry to hear about it because I see
a lot of Christians listening to cute sermons, and we're
telling you to do things that sound really big, to
forgive people and to be free of addiction. But I
hear the response from the people when the pulpit is
(19:37):
echoing forth these lofty ideals, and the people are sitting
in the peple saying.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
How.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
You're telling me what, but you're not telling me how.
I don't know how. I don't know how to read
my Bible.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
I don't know how to pray for over.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Thirteen seconds without thinking about my need for cereal at
the grocery store. I don't somebody try.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
It, say, I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
That's the most spiritual thing you've said all week. Who
did God pick to be the disciples of Jesus? Religious
professionals with academic no how he picked the people? Who
(20:43):
did God pick to carry his son? What's the first
thing Mary said? When the Angel said the one born
of you is the Holy One of God?
Speaker 1 (20:56):
What exactly how?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
What's the first thing that the disciple said when Jesus said,
feed these big crowds, even though you didn't pack of lunch.
What's the first thing they said that is the starting
place of spiritual growth?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
To admit? I sorry I'm screaming, but.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Sometimes it screams inside of me when God calls.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Me to do something. But I don't know how. I
don't I don't know how. I don't know how to
raise these kids.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
I don't know how I did before I had them, but.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Now they're here, and I don't know how. I read
the book, the baby book. It told me that if you.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Swaddle the child, but I found out my firstborn child
was unswaddleable.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I hear you preaching these great sermons.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Keep your eyes on Jesus, and don't look at the wind,
and don't look at the waves. But how do I
look at something that's invisible.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I hear what you're saying, and I want what you God,
But I don't know how.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
How many don't know how?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Just to see how I'm preaching to and who I
can leave alone?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I don't know how to forgive somebody, but then make
sure that I keep an appropriate distance so that they
don't continue to violate me.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I don't know. And here's a farmer doesn't know how
to make a seed grow, and Jesus says, is like that.
Growth is like that. There's a part that you will play,
(23:09):
and you will know what to do.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
You sow, you water, you plow, but you don't have
to know how.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
This is the dirty little secret of the Kingdom that
they don't want me to tell you.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
They want you to.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Think that God chooses and uses and blesses people who
are experts and who are the epitome of perfection. But
I want to tell you who God's looking for. Fishermen
like Peter, prostitutes like Rahab, people who don't know how.
That's what God is looking for, humble people. Blessed are
(23:47):
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, not those who
are so full of their own wisdom that they cannot
receive the wisdom of God.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
So if you.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Came here today with a I don't know how hard
God can feel what you will empty before him. I
don't have to know how. I don't have to know
how it works. If I did, I'd still be at
(24:17):
the house because I drove my Maxima here and I
have no idea how that that button told my tires
to spend. I have a little bit of a concept,
but not much. I found out something about my car
(24:38):
that I found.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Out about God.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
I found out I don't have to understand it. See
it got me from here to there, and from there
to here and here. I am preaching, but honestly, I
don't know how. I have an iPad. I put my
notes on my iPad. I turn on my iPad, the
(25:03):
notes appear on my iPad.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I preach to you. I understand what button to push.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I push it. I know what letters to type. I
typed them. But as to how the words appeared on
the iPad, I don't know how. It didn't stop me
from preaching, it didn't stop it from working.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
There may be somebody.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Here today who is in a situation where you.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Don't know how. God.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I'm not smart enough. God, I wasn't trained for this. God,
I've never been this way before. God, this is new
to me. God, I feel like a rookie. God I've
never God said from heaven, you don't have to know
how when you.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Know who, an't twitting? Come on five.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Five seconds, four seconds, yes, three seconds, two seconds. Now,
let's prace him like we know who he is. He's
the lord of the harvest. To see this mind what the.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Harvest this is? And I don't have to know. I
just gotta sew.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Don't let what you don't know keep you from sewing.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
The farmer didn't know how it was gonna happen, but
he knew what to do.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I gotta keep sewing.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I gotta keep praying, I gotta keep believing.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I gotta stay in this house. I gotta be present.
I gotta show up. All I gotta do is sow.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Find twelve disciples and tell him you don't have to
know how.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
You don't have to know how. You don't have to
know how.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I will make you fishures of men. All I need
is your boked. All I need is your will, All
I need is your want to. All I need is
your surrender. All I need is your obedience. But you
stop sewing because you didn't know how. You don't have
(27:22):
to know how. Let's get it in our spirits, say
I don't have to know how. I could be like
Abraham who set out from Erth without knowing where he
was going. He didn't have to know how because he knows.
He knows.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Are you getting a lesson?
Speaker 2 (27:47):
It's not just one text, it's the principle of this
parable that is illustrated.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
The Kingdom of God is like a man who sowed,
he did so.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Notice there there there is a part that you play.
But once you do what you know, there is a
poet that you reach where you can't make it rain,
and you can't control the rate of growth of the sea.
(28:20):
And there are so many people who will hear this
message online and in our campuses, who are waiting to
know before you.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Sow, and it's out of order.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
As much as I want to preach theologically right now,
I just want to minister to you personally.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Let the dirt do its work.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Because the greatest growth happened not when the farmer was
doing his part, but when the dirt was doing its part.
There's a cooperation that happens in each of our lives.
That's between the things we can control. I can plow,
I can water, and.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I can sew.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
I can speak words of encouragement, I can speak words
of life. I can invest my resources into the Kingdom
of God. I can do all of that, but the
part that produces the fruit is not attributed to the
farmer and the passage. And I think we fall into
an extreme where we either think it's all about what
(29:30):
we know or it's all about what God does. In
the passage, the farmer scatters, but the soil produces. And
the dirty little secret, if I can use that phrase
(29:52):
of the Kingdom of God that Jesus is comparing to
a seed, is that your destiny will be revealed in
the What do I mean, the disappointment, the insecurity, the rejection,
and the trouble.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Check it out.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
It spells dirt, the disappointment, the insecurity, the rejection, and
the trouble.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Now, this will be an excellent lesson.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
On its own because it illustrates the principles that will
apply to any area of our life. And right here
we could tell you to make lemonade out of limits.
And right here we could tell you it doesn't matter
how many times you fall down, you know, get knocked
down nine, get up ten. We could say anything we
(30:41):
want right here, and the principle would be powerful.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
But this is not a principle this is a parable, and.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
A parable is a picture that appears simple on the
surface but carries a deeper meaning. When I read the
passage two years ago, I thought that the far was
Jesus and the seed was the word of God.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
The problem with this interpretation of.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
The parable, upon further reflection and study, is that Jesus
can't be the farmer because the farmer doesn't know how
Jesus is the wisdom of God. So to compare Jesus
to the farmer who scatters the seed is to is
(31:30):
to miss the parable that is beneath the principle. The
principle is this, don't let what you don't know stop
you from sewing. But the parable, the parable, the picture
that Jesus is painting is of something that hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Everyone around him, in his.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Inner circle, which he has just selected in Mark chapter three,
everyone around him is trying their best to keep him
from going to the cross. For him to go to
the cross means the death of the movement that he
came to initiate.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
In their eyes. And so when he stood.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Before the judges, both the Jewish Sanhedrin and the Roman
government prelates, he was silent as a sheep before the sears.
Everything in those disciples wanted to see Jesus come down
from the cross to avoid being buried in the grave.
But Jesus stood before Pilot and he allowed those accusations
(32:30):
to be heaped on him although he was innocent, because.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
He knew that the dirt had a purpose to fulfill.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
And so as he stood before those who accused him
condemned him and sentenced him to die.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
He could have stopped it, and he could.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Have called for legions of angels to come and rescue
him from the rejection.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
But this is what he came for.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
So he said, with his silence something that is illustrated
in the parable. He said, let the dirt do its work,
because if they accuse me, then my father in Heaven
doesn't have.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
To accuse you.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
So I'm going to take your accusations and your shame. I,
the innocent, am going to absorb your punishment so that you,
the guilty, can go free.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
So when they heaped.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Their accusations on him, he took it. When he died
on the cross and they took him down and buried
him in the grave, he did not resist the burial. Instead,
he stayed dead three days to let the dirt do
its work. Now, we thought we were attending a funeral,
but really what it was was an agricultural lesson. Jesus
(33:44):
was not buried on Friday, he was planted. Now, because
he was planted on Friday, there is the expectation of harvest.
He is the first born among many brethren. So when
he lay in the grave, it wasn't over. It was
just beginning. I came to declare today to everybody who's
been going through a season of failure or depression, or
(34:06):
uncertainty or rejection or disappointment, let the dirt do its work.
Don't fight it, don't run from it, and don't pluck.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Up the sea because you don't like the season. Let
the dirt do its work.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
This is what the Kingdom of God is life. There's
nothing man can do to you that God cannot use
for his good. And I believe that. I believe that all.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Things work together for the good of him that love
the Lord and are called according to his purpose.
Speaker 5 (34:45):
But I I don't always know how.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
But I don't have to know how, because I know who.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
The emphasis on Romans eight twenty eight isn't on things.
All things work together for the good. The emphasis is
not on good because it might not feel good, and
I might not know how it's good while I'm in it.
The emphasis of Romans eight twenty eight is that I'm
called that I love God, and I'm called according to
(35:19):
his purpose. So his purpose is the promise that lets
me know that it seems insignificant, that to me it's invisible,
and I don't know how, but I know.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Everybody who wants to praise God for it.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
And I'm gonna give you thirty seconds to do what
you need to do. Maybe your neighbor doesn't want this word.
Maybe they want to let a bird snatch it or
a thorn choker. But there are some people here who
have been in the ground for a little while. And
I promise Cyris to every person.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Who's been in a depression.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
You've been in a funk, You've been in a failure.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
The devil sent it was in.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
But surday came.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Where you at Matthews, where you at Valentine, where you
at you see.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
You know what's crazy.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
I'm calling out all these campuses, and somehow they see
me on their screens and I don't.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Know how, but I don't have to know how. And
you know what. Somehow I'm preaching this word and.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
It's getting in your heart, and God's gonna use it,
and it won't return forid, but it will accomplish what
God sent it to do.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
But His ways are higher than my ways, and his
thoughts been my thoughts. I don't have to know. I
just have to sew. I just have to go. I
don't have to know.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
I don't know how I'm gonna make it, but I
don't have to know how. I don't know who God's
gonna use to get me through this, but I don't
have to know how.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
It might be manna that falls from the sky. It
might be a widow at Zaraphat that God uses to femie.
It might be a little boy's lunch that I didn't
even count in the official total because I thought he
was insignificant.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
But the seed always looks small. God might use a
little boy, a little thing that's a littless thing. I
don't have to know how. And some of you are
stuck because you need to know too much.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
You need to be perceived as someone who knows, and
so you remain in darkness. You want to be perceived
as someone who understands things that the soil represents uncertainty.
And I think it's good every once in a while
for us to hear a sermon where the farmer admits.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I don't even know how.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Come on, because if you had to call somebody who
just lost their child in a car wreck, like I
have to do off it, and you were telling them
that God is going to get you through this, you
wouldn't be.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
So quick to tell them how.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
I don't know how, but I pray right now in
the name of Jesus that the God of all comfort,
that's who.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Would surround you with his angels. That's who.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I don't know how, but I know whom I have believed.
So I pray, I sew, I scatter, some seed gets snatched,
some seed gets scorched, some seed gets strangled.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I'd make a good sermon, wouldn't it. They all start
with the letter.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
S and the temptation is when the seed is scattered
but it does not produce. You never want to sew again.
So then you prayed and the cancer still ate their body.
(39:53):
What's to make you ever want to pray?
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Again?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
So you stopped sewing, you stopped expecting, you had a funeral,
and stopped expecting a harvest.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
The business failed.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
That one child is on drugs, and you got very
confused about the difference between God's job and your job.
Obedience is the job of the farmer. Jesus is not
(40:34):
the farmer in this parable. He's the seed. He's the seed.
He is the seed of God, and he was planted
in the soil of the earth for three days, and
his resurrection gives us an expectation that we don't have
to understand the events of our life.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
To walk in a posture.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
I think it's better sometimes that we don't know. I
think it's better sometimes that we stay in a state
of uncertainty so that we don't get confused and think
that we're.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
The seed, that we're the source.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And I pray that this message has been practical today
and you'll be able to take something from it for
your life. But really, I think it's supposed to be prophetic.
That doesn't mean a crystal ball or a nine hundred number.
(41:39):
To me, that means that you receive this seed personally.
It's all about the soil. And if this seed gets
snatched or scorched by the trials of life, or choked
out by the deceitfulness of riches, the cares of this life,
or the desire for other things. It will be as
(42:01):
if it was never sown, and it'll be just another seed,
just another pep talk, just another Bible lesson.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
If you receive this seed, though, I'm trying.
Speaker 6 (42:16):
To tell you that God has set you free of
the expectation to understand obedience is your job.
Speaker 7 (42:27):
Outcome is God's. Let him do his job. Let him
do his job.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Let the dirt do its work.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Let the sufferings of this present time producing you a
glory that is not worthy to be.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Compared in comparison. Is so much bigger than that dirt.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Some of you are a dirt stage right now of
your dream. The first thing that happened to Joseph when
God gave him a dream.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Do you remember, they held a parade in his honor. Huh?
Speaker 2 (43:15):
He printed up his business cards and started handing them out.
He got four million followers on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Huh. They threw him in a pit.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Every promise needs a pit, every dream needs dirt.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Your faith needs fertilizer.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
All by hisself, the ground produces grain, water it, plow it.
Get your heart right, and let the dirt the rejection,
the insecurity, the confusion.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
God is not the author of confusion.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
God did not reject you, but he will use Genesis
fifty twenty. What you meant for evil, God intended it
for good and the saving of many lives.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Let the dirt do its work.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Praying for people right now in this moment, everyone's standing.
Who needed this word today? Because you've got something in
the ground in your life. If it's you and you're
not ashamed to respond to the word of God, and
you don't need to appear to have it all together.
If you are in a situation in your life where
you don't know how, you don't know how it's going
(44:36):
to come together, you don't know how to do what
you've been positioned to do.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Your responsibility exceeds your experience.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
If that's you today, at every location, lift your hands
to your Father, Lord. Whoever's lifting their hands right now,
they're saying to you without words, I don't know how, and.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
I believe this is a posture that you can honor. Father.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
You said, if we would umble ourselves in your sight,
you would lift us out. But that when we're proud
and that we're haughty, that you have to oppose us.
And God, we want to line up on the right
side today and understand that there's a part of this
process of our growth and our faith and our families.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
And our psychology.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
And our life experiences and our goals, our visions, our
ideas that we just don't know how. Some of us
are standing at the crossroads of multimillion dollar business deals
and we don't know how. Some of us are trying
to buy a next meal, and we don't know how.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Some of us are.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Trying to figure out how to get married, and we
don't know how.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Some of us are trying to figure out how to
stay Mary.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Then we don't know how. Pray the prayer say, I
don't know how, God, but I know who. I believe
that you are with me, and I declare that by
your spirit I will rise like a seed planted in
(46:13):
the earth, I will rise.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
I believe in resurrection. I don't know how, but I
know who.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Now, let me tell you something about resurrection. With your
hands still lifted, Resurrection is not an event. Resurrection is
a person. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the
life so if you've got a situation in your life
that needs to be resurrected, you don't have to know how.
I don't have to understand that I know who is
with me. I got the seed of the Word of God.
(46:47):
I got the seed of faith. If I got faith
the size of a mustard seed, I can say to
this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea,
and it shall be done. Get God a great price today.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
You can click the link in the description to give now,
or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information
and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
You can share it with your friends. You can click
the share button, take a screenshot.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
And share it on your social stories and tag us
at Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our
podcast and I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving
in your life.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Enjoy the message, Mark four twenty six.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
He also said, this is what the Kingdom of God
is like a man scattered seed on the ground night
and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed
sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
All by itself.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
The soil produces grain, first the stalk, then the head,
then the full kernel in the head. God knows the
order in which things need to happen in our lives,
and trusting him is in one sense, just allowing him
to do not only what he wants to do, but
(00:55):
when he wants to do it. Touch somebody say there's
an order to this. That's what we preached about last
week from Mark three, and we said that when you
get things out of.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Order, they stop working.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So that's why spending your money before you tithe is
a bad idea, because it's out of.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Order too early, too soon.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
That's why sex before marriage is a dangerous proposition. Too much,
too soon. Now he doesn't value you. Instead, he objectifies you.
And there's an order to things. There's an order to things.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
My time with God goes a lot better if I
start with thank you for what you've already done. I
got some things I need, I've got some unresolved issues
that I.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Want to bring before you.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
But first of all, God, I just want to thank
you because somebody's lying on a ventilator this morning, and
I have breath in my body, and you said, let
everything that has breadth.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Praise the Lord, and I got breath to praise you with.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
So God, right now, in spite of how I feel
on what I'm going through, I just want to give
you about sixteen seconds of praise. There's an order, there's
an order, and then comes the result as soon verse
(02:31):
twenty nine. As the grain is ripe, he puts the
sickle to it, and some of us put the sickle
to stuff too soon before it has the chance to
take root. And we spend money to impress people, and
because we don't know when to use what God has
(02:52):
given us, we end up ruining the very provision anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I'm just reading scriptures, has nothing to do with my sermon.
But I'll be honest with you. When I walked around
the corner, Valentine was singing like they love Jesus, and
I just got excited and the Holy Spirit just kicked
me into gear. So as soon as the grain is right,
he puts the sickle to it because the harvest has come.
But the real focus of this message is going to
(03:21):
be verse twenty seven B and twenty eight A. It
says the seed sprouts and grows night and day, whether
he sleeps or gets up. The seed sprouts and grows,
though he does not know how, and that's the key phrase.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
He does not know how.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
And then it says, all by itself, the soil produces grain.
And so to me, that made me think about grace,
and that made me think about God's sovereignty, and that
made me wonder, if I'm staying up stressing about stuff,
if I would get out of my own way and
let God deal with it the way that he knows
(04:05):
how to deal with things, I would be so much
better off, you know. So what I came to tell
you today. This is my sermon. Title is let the
dirt do its work. You may be seated. Let's work
on the scripture for a moment. I did preach from
this passage two years ago, and at.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
That time I was.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Taken by the temporal implications of this text and the
timing of God. I believe the title I gave that
little message was called the Seed is on schedule, and
I was using it to illustrate how things in our
life in some ways show up. Like the wise teacher
said that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
(04:52):
That's what I was trying to say two years ago.
And in the last two years, either this text has
gotten better.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I'm being sarcastic.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
The text didn't change, but God has opened my eyes
to see it in a little different way. And since
we been going through Mark's Gospel very slowly at a
leisurely stroll, to talk about savage Jesus, and all I
keep hearing from people as I see you out and
about is don't stop preaching savage Jesus. This series, just
keep keep it going until the rapture. And I don't
(05:26):
know about that, but I thought we should at least
take one parable and Mark gives us so much about
the context of Jesus ministry, but we also want to
take a moment now and pause and look at some
of the content of his ministry, and we see that
his teaching is creating opposition at the same time that
it is making an impact.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
By the way, that's always the case. Everything that makes
impact creates opposition.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
You know that, right if the devil touch somebody say,
if the devil is in messing with you, he doesn't
consider you a threat. So we've seen now five different
examples of controversy in the ministry of Jesus, which makes
me want to go back and have a conversation again.
(06:13):
One pastor, I said, what's your goal in ministry?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
He said, my goal is that on the Wikipedia page.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
And he didn't have a Wikipedia page, but he said,
if I have a Wikipedia page, this is already weird
hypothetical Wikipedia page.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Is your goal for ministry?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
He said, I hope there's no controversy section. He said
that was his main goal in ministry. By that standard,
Jesus Christ was the ultimate ministry failure.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Why are you looking shocked? What do you think the
cross was? You think it was jewelry.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
You think, you think, you think the cross was a
celebratory moment. The Roman Empire used that tool to torture
people who represented a threat. And everywhere Jesus went people
were threatened. The Pharisees, the teachers of the law, they
were threatened by Jesus. He was upsetting their entire system.
Were you here last week? Their entire system was being
(07:13):
overturned by.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
The things he was speaking and the things he was doing.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Not only that, but the demons were threatened by Jesus
every time he got in the presence of an impure
spirit and started shrieking and convulsing and begging and falling.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Down at his feet.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Is a funny thing, because the demons knew better who
Jesus was than the teachers of the law did. Isn't
that crazy? The demons saw Jesus and they fell down
at his feet. The teachers of the law saw Jesus
and they crossed their arms to judge him. Sometimes we
should be more like the demons than we should be
like the religious people. At least the demons knew this
(07:51):
guy's in charge. At least the demons knew he has
all power. At least the demons knew. He's not ordinary,
he's not average, he's not common.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
This is the son of God.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I wonder do we really worship him today? I wonder
do we really regard him as the supreme authority in
our lives?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Or is he just an accessory. This is what we've
been studying, and.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It all fits within the context all of the controversy
and all of the compassion of Jesus. They were both
growing together. Both grow together, the wheat and the terrorist.
That's when parable Jesus used, it's not our parable today,
but he was talking about the wheat grows and right
beside it all the weeds grow that want to choke
(08:42):
out the wheat. And what we tend to want to
do that is reflected in that parable in Matthew thirteen
is to separate the weeds from the wheat. But Jesus said,
both grow together. They have to. It's an eschatological principle
that he's using to talk about the harvest at the
end of the age, but it also has practical implications
(09:02):
in our lives that both grow together. As God is
drawing you into a deeper relationship and a more consistent
communion with him, there will also be a more consistent
sense of conflict to accompany the communion, because both grow together.
Don't be confused about it, and don't try to separate
(09:22):
what you think is the good stuff from what you
think is the bad stuff, because God uses both in
our life. The tears he uses for our humility so
that we will trust him, and the weed he uses
for our sustenance so that He can sustain us and
bless us, and both grow together. Now, with that context established,
(09:46):
we have a parable Jesus taught in parables. Mark shares
here several of them. Remember he's not compiling these in
the order that they happen. He's giving us a He's
giving us a how would I say it, a curated
account of the ministry of Jesus. And he's building for
(10:09):
us what he believes to be an accurate picture of
the purpose of the ministry of Jesus.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
And now Jesus is teaching us about.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
The nature of the Kingdom of God and our faith.
Maybe you've heard the parable of the different types of
soil that he starts with in Mark chapter four. He's
getting into this idea that there is always seed going forth.
God is always speaking to you. Stop asking God to
(10:39):
speak to you and start listening. It's the weirdest thing
we pray.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
God, speak to me, Speak to me, Speak to me,
Speak to me, Speak to me. If you'd shut up,
you'd hear that.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I already am. So the seed's always going forth. But
while my Bible calls it the parable of the sower,
it's really the parable of the soils. It's really about
our hearts. The soil is our soul, our mind, our will,
and our emotions. And in this passage he shares with
us how there are some seeds that fall on the path,
(11:14):
and the birds come and snatch them up. How many
of you have some seed snatchers in your life? Joy
Joy thieves, people who want to ruin your day.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And it's not nine thirty yet, and here they come.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
How many you have some seed snatching apps on your phone?
You know that one with the bird. What's it called twitter?
Jesus said? Jesus said, the birds of the air will
snatch the seed and grab your attention, so that you
don't act on what you heard, but you forget what
you heard. Because a lot of us have a stash
(11:49):
of seed.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
That we've never put in the ground.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
We've gotten to be professional seed collectors who know how
to highlight our Bibles and fill notebooks with information. But
without application, without soili, the seed only represents unused potential.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
And to me, that's a sad thing.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Woldn't be sad for God to show you in heaven
how much seed you sat on while you were here
on earth. Do not merely listen to the word. Instead,
do what it says. You are not blessed by the
word you hear, but the word that you do a
lot of times. If you think we need to know more,
(12:30):
I found out that I already know enough. Let me
give a few examples. I know not to talk bad
about people. If I would just do that, I think
I'd be working seventy hours a week.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Just that that alone.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I know that I'm supposed to consider others as more
important than myself.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I know that, and you know that.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Touch somebody say you know this, and if you know
how to say man after it, you could say man
after But if you.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Don't know how, don't try to be embarrassing. You know this.
You know this.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
In fact, look back at him one more time. I
need your help, because everybody looks a little bit resistant
to this point. We always want to know more. You know,
I want to grow spiritually. Look back at him and say,
if you would do what you knew, you would grow
(13:31):
spiritual growth. It's always been a tricky concept to me
because I thought spiritual growth required more knowledge. And I
don't have many regrets in life, but I do have
a few. One thing I regret I wish I would
have written a parenting book before I.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Had my kids.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
It's just something I think about often. How some my
parenting book would have been if I had written it
before parenting, because the time that I knew the most
about parenting.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
You know what, I wish the same thing.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Here's another recred I wish I would have written a
book about being a pastor before I started this church.
It would have been so profound. It would have had
diagrams and informational concepts.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
It would have been it would have been seven hundred and.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Seventy three pages of how to be a pastor? And
then you showed up and screwed up all my theories
about how to be a pastor. People messed up my
ideas about how to be a pastor.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
What's up with that? Now? It would just be a pamphlet.
It wouldn't even it would just be illustrated.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
It would only have the whole book would be prayer,
you know, the emoji with the prayer hands. That would
be the whole How to be a parent, how to
be a pastor?
Speaker 1 (15:02):
But I knew so much.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
You notice, those are the people who give the most advice,
those with the least experience. When I went down, I
tell you what I would do if it were me.
And I know, I mean, I'm not judging. I'm just saying, now, okay,
(15:29):
so three things.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
It's right here in the text. I know you think
that I'm confuser loss. It's as that the farmer, this
is crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
The farmer who puts the seed in the ground, not
the seed on the shelf, but the seed in the soil.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
He let's look at the verse on the screen again, he.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Experiences the maturation of that seed, though he does not
know how.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
What kind of farmer is this?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
If you don't know how the seed grows, you could
at least google it.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
There you would.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Find that the seed needs what light or the correct
temperatures and water. Yeah, and then it needs to be
planted in the right place. I can tell you exactly
how the seed grows. That's exactly how it grows. I
can explain that to you. And so if the scripture
says this parable, which is always used to get us
(16:38):
beneath the surface to the deeper meaning, if the parable
is included in Jesus' illustration of what the Kingdom of
God is like, he said, this is what the Kingdom
is like, and now we're expecting something spectacular. Because the
Kingdom of God is a new concept, Jesus is the
first one to use this term. And since they are
(17:00):
not familiar with this particular concept, Jesus is giving them
an earthly illustration.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yet he does not talk about the.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Kingdom of God being like Wakanda. He does not talk
about the Kingdom of God being like a spaceship.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
He does not talk about the Kingdom of.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
God being like a rocket. Instead, he says, and this
must have been anti climactic for those who gathered to
hear his message on this day, the Kingdom is like
a seed.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And on this alone, we understand that often what.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
God does in our life will feel insignificant, and then
it will go into the soil where it will be invisible.
And that a lot of times when God is working
in our lives in the greatest ways. We won't even
know how He's working. We will be ignorant. That's three eyes.
It makes an outline. Write it down.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Three things about the Kingdom of God.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
It often sees, means insignificant, It often appears invisible.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
And often you feel ignorant. So the greatest proof that
you are growing in your relationship with.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
God is sometimes the fact that you don't feel like you.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Are growing in your relationship with God.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I'm sorry for everyone who always needs a goose bump
to feel.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Like God is with you.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
But sometimes the greatest growth in your life is not
going to be on the surface of your emotions, your feelings,
or your senses. Sometimes the deeper work that God will
do is much greater than the highest work.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
That God will do.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
For what is the building without the foundation? Jesus said,
the Kingdom is like this is.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Something so small, seemingly.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
So insignificant, and it goes through stages that are so invisible,
and a lot of the times you will feel so ignorant.
Like the farmer who puts the seed in the ground
and doesn't know when he'll see it again. Sure he
can water it, Sure he can plow the ground. Surely
we have a part to play in our relationship with God.
(19:15):
But there is this other element of faith that I
want to talk about today that I don't hear about enough,
and I'm hungry to hear about it because I see
a lot of Christians listening to cute sermons, and we're
telling you to do things that sound really big, to
forgive people and to be free of addiction. But I
hear the response from the people when the pulpit is
(19:37):
echoing forth these lofty ideals, and the people are sitting
in the peple saying.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
How.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
You're telling me what, but you're not telling me how.
I don't know how. I don't know how to read
my Bible.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
I don't know how to pray for over.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Thirteen seconds without thinking about my need for cereal at
the grocery store. I don't somebody try.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
It, say, I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
That's the most spiritual thing you've said all week. Who
did God pick to be the disciples of Jesus? Religious
professionals with academic no how he picked the people? Who
(20:43):
did God pick to carry his son? What's the first
thing Mary said? When the Angel said the one born
of you is the Holy One of God?
Speaker 1 (20:56):
What exactly how?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
What's the first thing that the disciple said when Jesus said,
feed these big crowds, even though you didn't pack of lunch.
What's the first thing they said that is the starting
place of spiritual growth?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
To admit? I sorry I'm screaming, but.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Sometimes it screams inside of me when God calls.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Me to do something. But I don't know how. I
don't I don't know how. I don't know how to
raise these kids.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
I don't know how I did before I had them, but.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Now they're here, and I don't know how. I read
the book, the baby book. It told me that if you.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Swaddle the child, but I found out my firstborn child
was unswaddleable.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I hear you preaching these great sermons.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Keep your eyes on Jesus, and don't look at the wind,
and don't look at the waves. But how do I
look at something that's invisible.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I hear what you're saying, and I want what you God,
But I don't know how.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
How many don't know how?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Just to see how I'm preaching to and who I
can leave alone?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I don't know how to forgive somebody, but then make
sure that I keep an appropriate distance so that they
don't continue to violate me.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I don't know. And here's a farmer doesn't know how
to make a seed grow, and Jesus says, is like that.
Growth is like that. There's a part that you will play,
(23:09):
and you will know what to do.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
You sow, you water, you plow, but you don't have
to know how.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
This is the dirty little secret of the Kingdom that
they don't want me to tell you.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
They want you to.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Think that God chooses and uses and blesses people who
are experts and who are the epitome of perfection. But
I want to tell you who God's looking for. Fishermen
like Peter, prostitutes like Rahab, people who don't know how.
That's what God is looking for, humble people. Blessed are
(23:47):
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, not those who
are so full of their own wisdom that they cannot
receive the wisdom of God.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
So if you.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Came here today with a I don't know how hard
God can feel what you will empty before him. I
don't have to know how. I don't have to know
how it works. If I did, I'd still be at
(24:17):
the house because I drove my Maxima here and I
have no idea how that that button told my tires
to spend. I have a little bit of a concept,
but not much. I found out something about my car
(24:38):
that I found.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Out about God.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
I found out I don't have to understand it. See
it got me from here to there, and from there
to here and here. I am preaching, but honestly, I
don't know how. I have an iPad. I put my
notes on my iPad. I turn on my iPad, the
(25:03):
notes appear on my iPad.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I preach to you. I understand what button to push.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I push it. I know what letters to type. I
typed them. But as to how the words appeared on
the iPad, I don't know how. It didn't stop me
from preaching, it didn't stop it from working.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
There may be somebody.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Here today who is in a situation where you.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Don't know how. God.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I'm not smart enough. God, I wasn't trained for this. God,
I've never been this way before. God, this is new
to me. God, I feel like a rookie. God I've
never God said from heaven, you don't have to know
how when you.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Know who, an't twitting? Come on five.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Five seconds, four seconds, yes, three seconds, two seconds. Now,
let's prace him like we know who he is. He's
the lord of the harvest. To see this mind what the.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Harvest this is? And I don't have to know. I
just gotta sew.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Don't let what you don't know keep you from sewing.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
The farmer didn't know how it was gonna happen, but
he knew what to do.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I gotta keep sewing.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I gotta keep praying, I gotta keep believing.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I gotta stay in this house. I gotta be present.
I gotta show up. All I gotta do is sow.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Find twelve disciples and tell him you don't have to
know how.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
You don't have to know how. You don't have to
know how.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I will make you fishures of men. All I need
is your boked. All I need is your will, All
I need is your want to. All I need is
your surrender. All I need is your obedience. But you
stop sewing because you didn't know how. You don't have
(27:22):
to know how. Let's get it in our spirits, say
I don't have to know how. I could be like
Abraham who set out from Erth without knowing where he
was going. He didn't have to know how because he knows.
He knows.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Are you getting a lesson?
Speaker 2 (27:47):
It's not just one text, it's the principle of this
parable that is illustrated.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
The Kingdom of God is like a man who sowed,
he did so.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Notice there there there is a part that you play.
But once you do what you know, there is a
poet that you reach where you can't make it rain,
and you can't control the rate of growth of the sea.
(28:20):
And there are so many people who will hear this
message online and in our campuses, who are waiting to
know before you.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Sow, and it's out of order.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
As much as I want to preach theologically right now,
I just want to minister to you personally.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Let the dirt do its work.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Because the greatest growth happened not when the farmer was
doing his part, but when the dirt was doing its part.
There's a cooperation that happens in each of our lives.
That's between the things we can control. I can plow,
I can water, and.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I can sew.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
I can speak words of encouragement, I can speak words
of life. I can invest my resources into the Kingdom
of God. I can do all of that, but the
part that produces the fruit is not attributed to the
farmer and the passage. And I think we fall into
an extreme where we either think it's all about what
(29:30):
we know or it's all about what God does. In
the passage, the farmer scatters, but the soil produces. And
the dirty little secret, if I can use that phrase
(29:52):
of the Kingdom of God that Jesus is comparing to
a seed, is that your destiny will be revealed in
the What do I mean, the disappointment, the insecurity, the rejection,
and the trouble.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Check it out.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
It spells dirt, the disappointment, the insecurity, the rejection, and
the trouble.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Now, this will be an excellent lesson.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
On its own because it illustrates the principles that will
apply to any area of our life. And right here
we could tell you to make lemonade out of limits.
And right here we could tell you it doesn't matter
how many times you fall down, you know, get knocked
down nine, get up ten. We could say anything we
(30:41):
want right here, and the principle would be powerful.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
But this is not a principle this is a parable, and.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
A parable is a picture that appears simple on the
surface but carries a deeper meaning. When I read the
passage two years ago, I thought that the far was
Jesus and the seed was the word of God.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
The problem with this interpretation of.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
The parable, upon further reflection and study, is that Jesus
can't be the farmer because the farmer doesn't know how
Jesus is the wisdom of God. So to compare Jesus
to the farmer who scatters the seed is to is
(31:30):
to miss the parable that is beneath the principle. The
principle is this, don't let what you don't know stop
you from sewing. But the parable, the parable, the picture
that Jesus is painting is of something that hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Everyone around him, in his.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Inner circle, which he has just selected in Mark chapter three,
everyone around him is trying their best to keep him
from going to the cross. For him to go to
the cross means the death of the movement that he
came to initiate.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
In their eyes. And so when he stood.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Before the judges, both the Jewish Sanhedrin and the Roman
government prelates, he was silent as a sheep before the sears.
Everything in those disciples wanted to see Jesus come down
from the cross to avoid being buried in the grave.
But Jesus stood before Pilot and he allowed those accusations
(32:30):
to be heaped on him although he was innocent, because.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
He knew that the dirt had a purpose to fulfill.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
And so as he stood before those who accused him
condemned him and sentenced him to die.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
He could have stopped it, and he could.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Have called for legions of angels to come and rescue
him from the rejection.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
But this is what he came for.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
So he said, with his silence something that is illustrated
in the parable. He said, let the dirt do its work,
because if they accuse me, then my father in Heaven
doesn't have.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
To accuse you.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
So I'm going to take your accusations and your shame. I,
the innocent, am going to absorb your punishment so that you,
the guilty, can go free.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
So when they heaped.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Their accusations on him, he took it. When he died
on the cross and they took him down and buried
him in the grave, he did not resist the burial. Instead,
he stayed dead three days to let the dirt do
its work. Now, we thought we were attending a funeral,
but really what it was was an agricultural lesson. Jesus
(33:44):
was not buried on Friday, he was planted. Now, because
he was planted on Friday, there is the expectation of harvest.
He is the first born among many brethren. So when
he lay in the grave, it wasn't over. It was
just beginning. I came to declare today to everybody who's
been going through a season of failure or depression, or
(34:06):
uncertainty or rejection or disappointment, let the dirt do its work.
Don't fight it, don't run from it, and don't pluck.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Up the sea because you don't like the season. Let
the dirt do its work.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
This is what the Kingdom of God is life. There's
nothing man can do to you that God cannot use
for his good. And I believe that. I believe that all.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Things work together for the good of him that love
the Lord and are called according to his purpose.
Speaker 5 (34:45):
But I I don't always know how.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
But I don't have to know how, because I know who.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
The emphasis on Romans eight twenty eight isn't on things.
All things work together for the good. The emphasis is
not on good because it might not feel good, and
I might not know how it's good while I'm in it.
The emphasis of Romans eight twenty eight is that I'm
called that I love God, and I'm called according to
(35:19):
his purpose. So his purpose is the promise that lets
me know that it seems insignificant, that to me it's invisible,
and I don't know how, but I know.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Everybody who wants to praise God for it.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
And I'm gonna give you thirty seconds to do what
you need to do. Maybe your neighbor doesn't want this word.
Maybe they want to let a bird snatch it or
a thorn choker. But there are some people here who
have been in the ground for a little while. And
I promise Cyris to every person.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Who's been in a depression.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
You've been in a funk, You've been in a failure.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
The devil sent it was in.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
But surday came.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Where you at Matthews, where you at Valentine, where you
at you see.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
You know what's crazy.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
I'm calling out all these campuses, and somehow they see
me on their screens and I don't.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Know how, but I don't have to know how. And
you know what. Somehow I'm preaching this word and.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
It's getting in your heart, and God's gonna use it,
and it won't return forid, but it will accomplish what
God sent it to do.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
But His ways are higher than my ways, and his
thoughts been my thoughts. I don't have to know. I
just have to sew. I just have to go. I
don't have to know.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
I don't know how I'm gonna make it, but I
don't have to know how. I don't know who God's
gonna use to get me through this, but I don't
have to know how.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
It might be manna that falls from the sky. It
might be a widow at Zaraphat that God uses to femie.
It might be a little boy's lunch that I didn't
even count in the official total because I thought he
was insignificant.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
But the seed always looks small. God might use a
little boy, a little thing that's a littless thing. I
don't have to know how. And some of you are
stuck because you need to know too much.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
You need to be perceived as someone who knows, and
so you remain in darkness. You want to be perceived
as someone who understands things that the soil represents uncertainty.
And I think it's good every once in a while
for us to hear a sermon where the farmer admits.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I don't even know how.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Come on, because if you had to call somebody who
just lost their child in a car wreck, like I
have to do off it, and you were telling them
that God is going to get you through this, you
wouldn't be.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
So quick to tell them how.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
I don't know how, but I pray right now in
the name of Jesus that the God of all comfort,
that's who.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Would surround you with his angels. That's who.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I don't know how, but I know whom I have believed.
So I pray, I sew, I scatter, some seed gets snatched,
some seed gets scorched, some seed gets strangled.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I'd make a good sermon, wouldn't it. They all start
with the letter.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
S and the temptation is when the seed is scattered
but it does not produce. You never want to sew again.
So then you prayed and the cancer still ate their body.
(39:53):
What's to make you ever want to pray?
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Again?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
So you stopped sewing, you stopped expecting, you had a funeral,
and stopped expecting a harvest.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
The business failed.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
That one child is on drugs, and you got very
confused about the difference between God's job and your job.
Obedience is the job of the farmer. Jesus is not
(40:34):
the farmer in this parable. He's the seed. He's the seed.
He is the seed of God, and he was planted
in the soil of the earth for three days, and
his resurrection gives us an expectation that we don't have
to understand the events of our life.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
To walk in a posture.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
I think it's better sometimes that we don't know. I
think it's better sometimes that we stay in a state
of uncertainty so that we don't get confused and think
that we're.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
The seed, that we're the source.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And I pray that this message has been practical today
and you'll be able to take something from it for
your life. But really, I think it's supposed to be prophetic.
That doesn't mean a crystal ball or a nine hundred number.
(41:39):
To me, that means that you receive this seed personally.
It's all about the soil. And if this seed gets
snatched or scorched by the trials of life, or choked
out by the deceitfulness of riches, the cares of this life,
or the desire for other things. It will be as
(42:01):
if it was never sown, and it'll be just another seed,
just another pep talk, just another Bible lesson.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
If you receive this seed, though, I'm trying.
Speaker 6 (42:16):
To tell you that God has set you free of
the expectation to understand obedience is your job.
Speaker 7 (42:27):
Outcome is God's. Let him do his job. Let him
do his job.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Let the dirt do its work.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Let the sufferings of this present time producing you a
glory that is not worthy to be.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Compared in comparison. Is so much bigger than that dirt.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Some of you are a dirt stage right now of
your dream. The first thing that happened to Joseph when
God gave him a dream.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Do you remember, they held a parade in his honor. Huh?
Speaker 2 (43:15):
He printed up his business cards and started handing them out.
He got four million followers on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Huh. They threw him in a pit.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Every promise needs a pit, every dream needs dirt.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Your faith needs fertilizer.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
All by hisself, the ground produces grain, water it, plow it.
Get your heart right, and let the dirt the rejection,
the insecurity, the confusion.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
God is not the author of confusion.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
God did not reject you, but he will use Genesis
fifty twenty. What you meant for evil, God intended it
for good and the saving of many lives.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Let the dirt do its work.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Praying for people right now in this moment, everyone's standing.
Who needed this word today? Because you've got something in
the ground in your life. If it's you and you're
not ashamed to respond to the word of God, and
you don't need to appear to have it all together.
If you are in a situation in your life where
you don't know how, you don't know how it's going
(44:36):
to come together, you don't know how to do what
you've been positioned to do.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Your responsibility exceeds your experience.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
If that's you today, at every location, lift your hands
to your Father, Lord. Whoever's lifting their hands right now,
they're saying to you without words, I don't know how, and.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
I believe this is a posture that you can honor. Father.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
You said, if we would umble ourselves in your sight,
you would lift us out. But that when we're proud
and that we're haughty, that you have to oppose us.
And God, we want to line up on the right
side today and understand that there's a part of this
process of our growth and our faith and our families.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
And our psychology.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
And our life experiences and our goals, our visions, our
ideas that we just don't know how. Some of us
are standing at the crossroads of multimillion dollar business deals
and we don't know how. Some of us are trying
to buy a next meal, and we don't know how.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Some of us are.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Trying to figure out how to get married, and we
don't know how.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Some of us are trying to figure out how to
stay Mary.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Then we don't know how. Pray the prayer say, I
don't know how, God, but I know who. I believe
that you are with me, and I declare that by
your spirit I will rise like a seed planted in
(46:13):
the earth, I will rise.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
I believe in resurrection. I don't know how, but I
know who.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Now, let me tell you something about resurrection. With your
hands still lifted, Resurrection is not an event. Resurrection is
a person. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the
life so if you've got a situation in your life
that needs to be resurrected, you don't have to know how.
I don't have to understand that I know who is
with me. I got the seed of the Word of God.
(46:47):
I got the seed of faith. If I got faith
the size of a mustard seed, I can say to
this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea,
and it shall be done. Get God a great price today.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
You can click the link in the description to give now,
or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information
and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
You can share it with your friends. You can click
the share button, take a screenshot.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
And share it on your social stories and tag us
at Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com