Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles I just want to read this Scripture. Last week I was preaching about the mustard seed and how it looks little, but little is much when God is in it, and how if you can see the tree in the seed, it's a matter of time before the birds of the air are going to be nesting in the branches of the blessing that sometimes you can't even perceive when it's in the beginning stage. I got stuck on that in my own personal life, and the phrase that really was recurring in my heart was, "Yet when planted, it grows." I want to back up a little bit from the branches, where we ended last week in Mark 4… I want to go back to verse 26 of this same chapter of Scripture. Have you been enjoying the Functional Faith series? I had some people who have heard me preach for 10 years now tell me, "This is my favorite one you've ever done." That felt good to know I've still got it. What we want to do today is stay on this theme of faith as analogous to a seed and use this agricultural metaphor that Jesus seems so keen on in Mark 4:26 to illustrate some lessons for our own life and illuminate our understanding of the kingdom. "He also said, 'This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.'" Wow. I want to talk to you today with an encouraging word. I want to tell you that the seed is on schedule. The seed is on schedule. We want to dig into this. Let's pray one more time. God, I ask that you would give me what these people need. You know good and well that I don't have what they need, but I know good and well you do, so make a transfer through my mouth. In Jesus' name, amen. Ground work. Jesus is helping his disciples to have a perspective of patience as they await the kingdom of God to be fully manifested. He knows they want a militaristic rule and reign of the kingdom of God, and yet contrary to their expectations or desires, he's letting them know the kingdom of heaven is going to be revealed in stages. So he gets into probably the most accurate presentation of what it feels like in our own lives as we're waiting on what was planted by faith to produce a harvest. He talks about different stages of faith. I think if you can realize that one thing about the nature of faith, that everything God will reveal in your life is going to be revealed and accomplished in stages, you'll be much better off than expecting some sudden shift in your life that fixes everything. I've preached all over the world now enough to know that you can get a reaction in any room if you announce a shift. "There's a shift. God is shifting something in your life." If you say it's a sudden shift, well, the whole room will go off with that announcement. Jesus said it's a little bit more like what a seed does in the soil. He wants you to know that, and he wants you to know that some things just take time. Warren Buffett said that. He was talking about people who want to get rich quick or build a business quick. He said, "No matter how much talent or effort one possesses, some things just take time." Is anybody pregnant? Congratulations. Pregnant as well? Congratulations. Holly, you'd better not even look like you're about to raise your hand right now. I will come down there. Anybody else? I saw two here at Blakeney. Yeah, that's great. I'm sure at Uptown… That's a very young youthful campus. I'm sure they're all doing their part for church growth, repopulating, replenishing the earth. So you're pregnant. That's great. I think it's interesting. Warren Buffett said that if you want to produce a baby, you can't produce a baby in a month by getting nine different women pregnant. I'm going to let that sink in. He was trying to say that some things just take time. Touch your neighbor and say, "I know you want it yesterday." I know you want Jesus to be your Burger King. I know you want it your way right away. I know you thought this was a drive-through, but some things just take time. How many know that destiny is not a drive-through, where you place your order and pick it up three minutes later without pickles? (I don't like pickles.) Some things just take time. We have to get into this flow with Jesus if we're to expect him to work in our lives. So he talks about stages. I would say that in this sermon I see three different stages we should look at, and one is the scattering stage. He said the kingdom of God is like a man who scatters seed on the ground. Then he mentions the sprouting stage, where the seed sprouts and grows. In the scattering stage, you have to plow the ground or the seed is not going to go down. In the sprouting stage, you have to harvest the grain or it's going to go bad in your field. I am not a farmer, nor am I the son of a farmer, nor have I ever planted a garden, nor do I even like to eat vegetables, but I want to follow the analogy as closely as I can today. Bring out my tools. This sermon is a farm-to-table sermon, okay? Hello! This sermon is organic. We want to use these illustrations. Do you see the way he put those tools in front of me? This is a scythe. Have you seen this before? This is a spade. Have you seen this before? Okay. The way he put these tools down, I think, with this one first and this one second, illustrates the way many of us want faith to produce in our lives. Jesus is giving us a parable to illustrate an invisible kingdom, utilizing visible terms so we can relate and understand. The spade always comes before the sickle. Can you help me preach this? I sure would appreciate it if you didn't look so confused. Maybe the reason you look confused is because we live in a world that wants to harvest before we plow. We live in a world that wants to buy it before we can afford it. We live in a world that wants to sleep with it before we put a ring on it. But Jesus said if you want to be in this kingdom, first the spade and then the sickle. Why in the world would you go out to a field with a sickle when you didn't plow up the ground with a spade? Why in the world would you expect a fruitful marriage when you haven't sown seeds of love? Why in the world would you expect a date from a woman at Elevation Church if you're not even on the greeter team looking for one? Oh, that got a response. I just turned this into a single's conference. He said there is the scattering of the seed, and I love that part. Don't you? The scattering of the seed. Don't you love when God just scatters the seed of his Word over your life? Don't you love coming to church, where you can just get some good seed and some thoughts of inspiration and some… Just throw it out there, man. Even on social media I try to scatter seed. That's my job. That's what I do. I am a farmer, a spiritual sharecropper. So what I'm trying to do is just hit you with some inspiration in the middle of your day when you're feeling sorry for yourself and give you a little kick sometimes to get you to the next place you have to be to at 3:00 on Tuesday, because sometimes I can't make it off of Sunday's seed. I need some fresh seed scattered on my life. So he scattered the seed. This is the third of three different seed parables Jesus uses that Mark has collected in Mark, chapter 4. It's a compilation that he's using. He talks about the seed in different ways. He has given an illustration of a reality we can all relate to. So he talks about that stage of scattering, where possibility is eminent. That stage of scattering, where you get really excited about something God can do in your life. That scattering stage. The interesting thing about this farmer is he doesn't seem very educated about the process, because Jesus said the man goes out and scatters seed, and whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he doesn't know how. He doesn't even know how it's happening. A reporter asked me a couple of months ago, "Did you ever envision that all of this would happen? This ministry, this church. Did you ever envision all of this?" I said, "Well, kind of. That's kind of why I started it. I hoped anyway. I didn't know for sure, but I hoped." Her next question was, "How did it happen? To what do you attribute it?" It's in those moments where I can tell you something and I can make something up and I can point you to some factors, but really, if you want me to be honest with you, I don't even know. Have you ever had God do something in your life where, if you're honest, you don't even know? Touch somebody next to you and say, "You don't even know." You can act like you were intelligent enough to get that job, but the fact is you know you weren't qualified. You can act like you were smooth enough to get that woman, but the fact of the matter is you don't even know why she said yes. You don't even know why she was attracted to you. Put your hand up. You know I'm preaching to you. You don't even know. Touch somebody and say, "I don't even know." Just some kind of way, God did it. I have to be honest about it. There are some things in my life I don't even know how I made it through. I thought I'd be down on the canvas too. I don't even know how I got up and faced another day. I don't even know how I made it through the death of my mother. I don't even know, but somehow, someway, when it was all said and done, he brought me through, and I'm still standing. I don't even know. I don't even know why he has blessed me like he has blessed me. I don't even know why my kids turned out good. I did enough stuff to screw them up. The truth is they should have been a mess. I don't even know how they turned out on the honor roll. I don't even know how I got to college. I don't even know why I'm in this place. I don't even know how I live in this house. I don't even know how I drive this car. I don't even know how my dad, who never made it past the eighth grade, opened up his own business and taught me some principles, where now I can stand today and be a pastor. Sometimes you look at the size of the seed and judge it against the size of the harvest, and if you're honest about it, the only reasonable response is to throw up your hands and say, "I don't even know!" For everybody who's living in a ridiculous blessing that you don't even understand, give him some praise! Holly asked me last night, "Where did that sermon come from?" You know what I said? "I don't even know." I don't even know. He didn't even know. He's like a little child who opens up the refrigerator. The refrigerator is full of food. "How'd the food get there?" "I don't know." Like a child who flips on an electricity switch, and here come the lights on. "How do the lights come on every time I flip the switch?" A child doesn't even know. There's a sense in which faith is childlike. Faith like a child. Just to trust God and to know that you don't have to know. Can I prove it to you? If I can prove it to you, say, "Prove it to me, Pastor Steven." Come on, say, "Prove it to me right now, Pastor Steven. I dare you to prove it to me right now, Pastor Steven." All right, watch this. I want to welcome today all of our locations who are joining me across many different cities in 13 locations and on the Internet around the world. Let me tell you something. I don't even know how what I just said is showing up on a screen in Rock Hill. I cannot explain it to you. I can't explain to you about the Internet lines that carry it to somebody's iPhone who's watching it in Topeka, Kansas. Why Topeka? It's the most random thing I could think of to say. I don't even know how this sermon is getting from Charlotte to Kansas. I don't have to know. All I have to do is sow this Word, because somebody is working on a switcher somewhere who knows… I wish you would shout about the fact that you don't even have to understand it to walk in it. You don't even have to know how the car works to drive in it. You don't have to have a degree in electricity to have light in your house. You don't have to understand all the ways God is working in your life for him to be working beneath the surface. Somehow the message is getting out. Somehow Verizon or AT&T or Time Warner or somebody is carrying this message on the wings of the Internet angels, and it's going out somehow,