The Seed

Hello. I thought I was gonna be able to get my microphone on in time. I didn’t in the first surf, so I didn’t in this one, so whatever. Welcome. It’s so great to see you here and those watching online. Uh I hope thatlike me, you’re able to spend some time with friends and family this weekend and avoid the rain showers. Of course, today there’s no avoiding it, so hope you’ve got inside activities planned. But I’m glad you’rehere and uh glad that we can worship God together this morning. My name is Jim Jensen. People around here call me JJ, and I’m the executive director, which means that uh as our lead pastor Tim uh gives usthe charge of our mission and vision, I just uh look at all the details of that and make sure that we’re doing uh we’re actually doing that. We’re actually fulfilling the mission and vision through across all ourministries. It’s a fun job, and uh it’s my privilege to be able to give the message today as well, as we’re in this series called Little Things. So, little things, uh there are little things in our lives, there are little thingsin this world, and they mean they mean more than their size. Uh we last week we talked about the tongue. The tongue is a small part of our body, uh, but uh with the tongue we form words, and those words havelots of meanings, both good and bad, and so the tongue is one of those little things.

Today we’re talking about seeds. Uh Jesus used the metaphor of a seed in scripture a couple of times. We’re gonna look at thattoday and what he meant by that, and then next week we’re gonna follow it up with a gift, and I’ll tell you more about that next week. So uh little things, little things. I went around the house this week and I tooka couple of pictures of some little things that I found that make a big difference. Uh you probably have these things in your home too. There’s that’s my front door, and that’s my front door key. And you know uhthat’s a little thing, but it occurred to me that if anyone else had that key, they could open those locks and they could have access to my entire home. So it’s a little thing, it’s uh it uh means a lot though. It’s uh itmakes a big difference. Uh I’m the chef in our family, and so here I am in the kitchen, and it occurred to me that salt grains are really little things. But you know what? Almost every recipe uh calls for saltbecause salt enhances the flavor of food, and so we use salt in almost every every recipe, every dish, and it’s a little thing that makes a big difference. So I had to go back in the archives for this one. This is myoldest daughter Julia, this is many years ago, and you can see she’s got a cast on her arm. See, there was this little patch of ice in our driveway, and uh I did not salt it because it I saw it, but it was so small Ithought, well, no one’s ever gonna slip on that.

But she did, and she broke her wrist, and I felt really, really bad. And uh I really salt the driveway very carefully ever since then. Nothing can grow around ourdriveway anymore, it’s all salted earth or whatever, but uh I tried to do my best. Oh, that little patch of ice was a little thing, it made a big difference. Every great and impressive project, business, or movementthat you see around you, anything that’s been created, we now have trillion-dollar industries in our world. All of that started with a little thing, just an idea, an idea in someone’s mind. And then something bigcame of it. This is a principle that works all around the world, all in our lives, and this is a principle that’s found in the Bible, of course. Uh and Jesus uses the metaphor of a seed, a little seed, twice. And we’regonna look at uh both instances. This one we’re just gonna look at really quickly. It’s in Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew. It’s a parable. Jesus told them a parable. He said, The kingdom of heaven is like amustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that birds come and perch in its branches.Well, you know, the kingdom of God was like a little seed. It started with one person, Jesus Christ. A little baby in a manger, if you will. And then twelve disciples, some more followers in Jerusalem, a fewthousand people in the early church.

Today, Christianity is a worldwide faith of billions of people. And so that little small seed is grown into a huge tree. Little things can be very important. Little things are oftenthe start of something really big. Well, today we’re going to talk about faith. We’re going to talk about our faith. Sometimes we think faith is a little thing. If everything’s going right in your world, in your family,in your job, maybe you don’t think so much about your faith. We tend to minimize it. At least I do. But when something goes wrong, or we have a problem, an issue, something we can’t solve on our own,suddenly our faith seems a lot more important, doesn’t it? It seems bigger, and we want to kind of dig into that. Well, I need some faith. And Jesus’ disciples also felt the same way. In fact, at one point they askedJesus, hey, increase our faith. We would like more faith. Fortunately, it was recorded for us, and again, Jesus uses this metaphor of the seed. So let’s take a look at this. This is in the Gospel of Luke. The disciplessaid to the Lord, Increase our faith. Jesus said, If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, Be uprooted and plant it in the sea, and it will obey you. I didn’t look up what amulberry tree looks like, but I’m sure it’s bigger than the seed. So, and uh Jesus is saying something really important here, which you have to catch. The disciples are saying, hey, give us more faith. We needmore faith.

We need to increase our faith. And Jesus says something interesting here. Well, actually, he says, you only need a little tiny bit. Because a little bit of faith goes a long way. A long way. He’s sayingthat even a little faith is strong. In fact, the Bible teaches that it’s the amount of faith that we have actually doesn’t matter. Consider this verse from Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9. Maybe you’veread this before. For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not by works, so that no one can boast. As we just start diving into this idea of ourfaith and what it means, asking whether we have enough faith is the wrong question. It’s actually the wrong question. Let’s do a little faith checkup this morning. Just think personally a bit. Do you feel moreconnected or disconnected? Do you feel close to God? Do you feel far away from God? It’s worth thinking about. On a scale of one to ten, ten being the best, where would you, if you had to rate your faithjourney, how would you rate it? Give it a number. We often think, well, I just need more faith. I just need more of whatever this is. Jesus is saying, it’s not the amount. It’s not the amount that matters. As afollower of Jesus, it comes down to this. The key of faith isn’t how much of it we have, but where it comes from. Where it comes from. Maybe you feel your faith is small or shaky.

Maybe you think it goes likethis, up and down, it waxes and wanes. But you have some faith in God, enough to worry about if it’s enough. Listen to this clearly. If you have even a little faith, you have that faith. And that little thing, youdidn’t earn it, you didn’t work for it. It’s a gift. God gave it to you. If you have that little thing, that little faith, you have a gift from God Himself. That’s where it came from. It’s not about what we can generate,it’s about what we receive. Our faith is a gift from God. I don’t know what you might be thinking. You’re like, yeah, that’s great. It’s a gift. But I know these people in my life. They seem to have such strongfaith. It’s so much stronger than mine, it seems like. Well, how can I get that? Maybe, maybe we kind of envy those people. We’re like, I don’t know how they did it, but um, I just kind of crashed through life,going from one thing to the next. These people seem like rocks in their faith. How do they do that? How can I get that? Well, first of all, just remember that just because someone looks like they have everythingtogether doesn’t mean that they always have everything together. We all kind of crash through life at times. We’re all really in the same boat. But there are people that seem to have this master level of faith. Sowhat’s that all about?

Well, it turns out that Jesus tells his disciples exactly what that part is about in this same talk where they say, increase our faith, and he says, Well, it’s really not about getting more faith. Asmall amount of faith is very powerful. It’s a gift, it’s a gift from God. And then he goes on to tell them a story that will give us some insight into this master level faith. This is what he says. Suppose one of youhas a servant plowing or looking after sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, Come along now and sit down to eat? Won’t he rather say, Prepare my supper, get yourself ready, andwait on me while I eat and drink? After that you may eat and drink. Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? You also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say,We are unworthy servants. We have only done our duty. Now, maybe you’re like me when you were reading this. When I read this in preparation for the message, I thought, what does this have to do with faith?I don’t get it. Like now he’s talking about servants and eating and drinking and doing work. And as I looked into it, I saw that Jesus is actually giving us a deep truth about faith. It’s a hard truth sometimes, buthe’s saying that there’s a difference between receiving faith and nurturing faith.

There’s a difference between receiving it, which is a gift, and nurturing it. What he’s saying is that the nurturing of our faith isfound in long obedience to God over time. And it’s not always going to be easy when we think that we’ve we’ve achieved it or that we’ve we’ve done it, there’ll be more to do. That’s why he says in this parable, aservant just doesn’t do one thing. It’s not just the sheep and the goats or whatever, you come home, it’s also waiting on tables. You don’t get to eat right away, you serve someone else, and then you eat. What he’ssaying is that if you want stronger faith, if you want a mature faith, if you want more confidence in your faith, then you have to be a servant. You have to serve the Lord with your life. You have to nurture thegift that’s been given to you. It’s not just about plowing the fields and looking after the sheep. He’s telling his disciples that God gives us opportunities every day of our lives to mature our faith. The manyvarieties and situations and challenges we face every day, they have a purpose. They’re not useless, they’re not arbitrary, but they have a point. God uses everything in our lives to nurture and mature our faithover time. I think of like music, for example. Your favorite band. Your favorite song from your favorite band comes on Spotify or you’re listening on the radio, and you’re like, boy, this is a great song. I love thissong.

I’ve heard this song a hundred times, five hundred times, but I can’t get enough of it. I love it, it’s beautiful. Or I don’t know if this has ever happened to you, but you’ve looked at a work of art. Sometimesyou go to a museum and you’re like, yeah, yeah, paintings, and then something just stands out to you and you’re like, wait, that’s beautiful, and you just stare at it. How did they do that? How did the artist paintthat? It’s not huge in our culture, but you know, people that dance, have you ever seen just a wonderful, masterful dancer use their body just coordinated and beautiful, maybe it’s set to music, and you think, howcan they possibly do that? Like, how did they get there? How did that skill become so mature? Well, you don’t just pick up a paintbrush and paint Starry Night. That’s not how that works. What we see is the tipof the iceberg. What nobody sees is the practice. It’s thousands of hours of painting on a canvas, of practicing an instrument, of writing songs, of working out dance movements. It takes a long time to mature atalent into a skill. And that’s what Jesus is getting at here with our faith. Sometimes you don’t see the behind-the-scenes stuff. I’m a keyboardist, a pianist, and I have hundreds, I think probably thousands ofhours of practice behind me. You don’t see it, but I remember it. My parents remember it when I was a kid, playing the piano over and over and over, practicing. But that practice produced a skill.

It produced thematuring of a talent. That’s what it’s like. And you know, when you think back to these people that I was talking about that seem to have this amazing faith, how do they do that? How do they get there? It’s notthat they have more faith, it’s that they have mature faith. When I think of those people, I think of my mom. My mom has an incredible faith in Jesus, an incredible confidence in God. How did she get that?Well, it was many years of just living, everyday living, trusting God day to day with her everyday life. She had circumstances in her life that helped mature her faith. They were difficult circumstances. Iremember my grandmother, her mom, had Parkinson’s disease. And she cared for her mom for 10 years and watched her waste away and pass away. I remember after the funeral for that, I was in college. Itwasn’t maybe six months to a year, and we found out that my grandfather, her dad, had dementia. And then she just did it all over again. He died when he was 94, took him a long time. And it was a longgoodbye. It was difficult. And my mom was the caregiver for that. She did that while she was battling breast cancer three times, which was tough. And uh, she also has a disease called fibromyalgia. If you’refamiliar with that, it’s a little bit like celiac. You’re you’re um allergic to many foods and sensitivities with skin, and you’re you’re also very exhausted all the time.

She has to take a nap daily to have the energy toget through a day, and she’s been living with that for decades. And I don’t tell you all this to have for you to have a pity party on my mom. I’m just telling you that she had a chance to mature her faith. Thesewere difficult circumstances. God didn’t delight in bringing her suffering. That’s not how God works, but he does use everything in our lives. He used that in my mom’s life. And I can tell you, when I have anissue or a problem, I go to her and I ask her to pray for me. Because I just know that she will, and I know that she is so confident in God because of these experiences, because of the testing of her faith. She’sbecome mature in her faith, and I know that her prayers are powerful. When she says, it’s gonna be alright, you’re gonna get through this. I mean, that means so much because I know that she’s been through somuch, and she’s come out the other side with a strong, mature faith. These people that we see that have mature faith, that’s how they do it. They’re not superstars. They don’t have more faith than we do, theyhave a mature faith. God has used the circumstances of their life to nurture and grow his gift of faith. You can say it this way. If you want to just break it down, these are the truths about faith. Our faith and oursalvation are gifts from a loving God. Our lives are a testing ground for God to grow these gifts.

And don’t think that, you know, I think we might be tempted to believe, oh, well, so I guess the life of faith, a lifeof a Christian, is a life of suffering. So we’re just gonna suffer. Oh, great. What an encouraging message today. But I’m not saying that. There are hard times. We’re all going to suffer in life. We’re all gonna havehardships. I do, you do, we all will. That’s a fact of life. The point is that God uses anything and everything, He redeems it all. It could be as simple as working on an attitude, a good attitude, staying faithful to aspouse. It could be, you know, something in our life that uh we have a disagreement with a friend and we have to make it right. It could be just waking up every morning and saying, God, I trust you. I know thatyou have the best for me. We should actually be encouraged. We should be encouraged because God doesn’t leave us alone in this world. He nurtures our faith, he grows our faith no matter what we’re goingthrough. We should be encouraged by that. James chapter 1, verses 3 and 4 say it this way: the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature andcomplete not lacking in anything. If I can think of an example of what this long-haul kind of maturing faith feels like, because honestly, in our culture, we’re not used to these big projects, these projects that takedecades.

Uh, I can order something from Amazon and have it delivered to my house like in three hours now. It’s incredible how fast they are. I’m not saying that’s wrong. It’s nice to be able to solve problemswith technology and systems. We live in an amazing world with amazing opportunities. But this project of maturing faith is not like that. It takes time, it takes a lifetime. But the the closest analogy I can think ofthat we all would share is we’ve all we’ve all either been parents or we’ve had parents. And parenting is another long-haul project. I know my wife and I are about to enter this phase of empty nesters. I’ve spokenabout it a couple of times in the last year. We’ve really been doing a lot of reflecting on what that means. We’re always going to be parents. Uh, for those that are empty nesters, you know you’re always a parent.I know that. But the season is gonna be different. From the birth of our oldest child to the moment this fall when Haley, our youngest daughter, goes to Calvin University in Grand Rapids. That’s been 21 years,and we’ve had 21 years of that intense uh kids living at home parenting. And yeah, it’s been a long haul. But it’s also been a joy. It’s been our privilege to do that. We’ve had victories, we’ve had fun moments. Wedon’t regret any of it. And sure, it’s been hard at times, but it’s it’s been a positive experience for us as parents. That’s how we should think about this lifelong journey of faith.

It is not a negative thing, it’s apositive thing. It is sometimes hard, but it’s joyful. It has a great result. Wouldn’t you love to be mature, complete, not lacking in anything? It’s worth it. It’s worth it. So let’s um let’s end where I started. Littlethings. They’re little everyday things. Let’s not talk about the huge problems right now. Let’s just talk about what’s going to happen later today or tomorrow or this week. Right where you are, God is encouragingyou and giving you his power to take steps of maturity in your faith. Where might it be? Maybe it’s your attitude toward your circumstances or your attitude towards a person in your life. Maybe it’s releasingfrustration or releasing anger or releasing pain or fear. Maybe it’s trusting God with a little issue, a little problem, or a big problem. Maybe it’s confessing a hidden sin that’s been holding you back, a habit thatyou know you need to break because it’s not healthy, a sin in your life that needs to stop. Maybe it’s reconnecting with him daily in prayer and reading his word. Or it’s weekly worship. Don’t underestimate thepower of what we’re doing right now to mature our faith and to have God speak to us. Or fill in the blank. The best thing about this message today is I know how God is working in my life. I don’t need to knowhow God is working in your life.

You know how he is, you know the issue, you know the next thing. We all do. When you think about it, when you reflect about it, we all know. It’s not that we don’t know, it’sthat we’re afraid to trust. So, where is that for you? Whether it’s a small thing or a big thing, I would encourage you today, engage it with your faith. Remember that it’s a gift from God and that God has all thepower that you need to take that next step this afternoon, tomorrow, this week, this year. Be encouraged. God is at work in your life, and he’s at work in my life. Let’s pray together. God, thank you so much foryour gift of faith. It’s a little thing, it seems, sometimes, but it’s man, it’s so important, it’s vital. And we’re all at different places. Some of us are just beginning our journey, some of us have been on this faithjourney for a long time, but it’s a lifelong project, it never stops. And so, God, thank you for your gift of faith. Thank you for your gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. And thank you for the power that’sworking within our hearts to mature our faith. Lord, help us to know where you are working, and help us to have the courage to take our next step in that journey.

Amen.