|
|
|
151 Wahpeton Hill Road Hardy, Arkansas 72542-8824
|
|
|
|
November 4, 2007 Sermon: “I Think I Shall”
A pastor was talking to his farmer friend, and he asked the farmer, “If you had one hundred horses, would you give me fifty?” The farmer said, “Certainly.” The pastor asked, “If you had one hundred cows, would you give me fifty?” The farmer said, “Yes.” Then the pastor asked, “If you had two pigs, would you give me one?” The farmer said, “Now cut that out, pastor, you know I have two pigs.”
2nd Corinthians chapter 9 said to us this morning, “…you will be enriched so that you can give even more generously. And when we take our gifts to those who need them, they will break out in thanksgiving to God.
Giving, sowing, planting, gifting are all wonderful, but keep in mind what Galatians 6:7 and 8 tells us: “Don’t be fooled. You can’t outsmart God. A man gathers a crop from what he plants. Some people plant to please their sinful nature. From that nature, they will harvest death. Others plant to please the Holy Spirit. From the Spirit they will harvest eternal life.”
2nd Timothy 1:6 – 7 broadens our thinking through these words, “That is why I remind you to help God’s gift grow, just as a small spark grows into a fire. God put his gift in you when I placed my hands on you. God didn’t give us a spirit that makes us weak and fearful. He gave us a spirit that gives us power and love. It helps us control ourselves.”
However, 2nd Timothy also cautions us as we make this journey of discovery with these thoughts, “But keep your head in all situations…” Therefore, as we start out to sow in the hope of some eventual harvest we are reminded that “Even a woodpecker owes his success to the fact that he uses his head.”
Keep that advice in mind while you follow these circumstances. A woman was sitting in her den one day when a small black snake suddenly appeared, slithered across the floor, and made its way under the couch. Being deathly afraid of snakes, the woman promptly ran to the bathroom to get her husband, who was taking a shower. With only a towel around his waist, he grabbed an old broom from the closet and began poking under the couch with the handle. At this point, the sleeping family dog awoke. Curious to see what was happening, he came up behind the husband and touched his cold nose to the back of the man’s heel. The man, surmising that the snake had outmaneuvered him and had bitten him on the heel, fainted dead away. The wife concluded that her husband had overexerted and collapsed with a heart attack. She ran from the house to a hospital just one block away. The ambulance drivers promptly returned with her to the house and placed the man on a stretcher. As they were carrying him out of the house, the snake reappeared from beneath the couch. One of the drivers became so excited that he dropped his end of the stretcher and broke the husband’s leg. Seeing her husband’s twisted leg, the wife collapsed. …Meanwhile, the snake slithered quietly away!
Everything we do is affected by attitude and everything we do begins with some form of seed: a seed of thought, a seed of conversation, and a seed for a crop. For instance: someone plants a small acorn and it becomes the mighty oak tree. Plant a small kernel of corn and it produces two cornstalks. Each stalk produces two ears of corn. Each ear of corn contains over seven hundred kernels of corn. From that one small seed or kernel of corn, 2,800 more kernels are created.
Look at a seed as anything that can multiply and becomes more. A seed is anything you give that benefits something or someone else and everything you possess can be planted back into the world as a seed.
· Love is a seed. When you sow love into your family, you reap love. Some children were asked, “What is love?” One little girl answered, “Love is when your mommy reads you a bedtime story. True love is when she doesn’t skip any pages.”
· Sow a seed of encouragement, of cheer, of hope through carefully selected words chosen for the moment with a friend or colleague and see if you do not harvest warmth and appreciation.
· Sowing a seed of help by doing something helpful for someone, merely opening a door or one of those “random acts of kindness” you’ve heard of, can bring a smile.
· Sowing “the miracle seed of time” is the greatest difference between the poor and the prosperous – those that have and those that have not. Time is the currency of the earth. I used to have a sign that I kept handy that said, “Time easiest to lose, hardest to gain.” The greatest musicians, artists and scholars of anything in their field, invested the gift of time to develop their gifts from God.
· Money is a seed. Sowing the seed of money is tithing at church, giving God that 10% He asks for. I saw a bumper sticker a while back that said, “Tithe if you love Jesus; any idiot can honk!” When you sow finances into the work of God, you will reap God’s provision and blessings on your finances. Think about the widow's mite – Others laughed when she offer her two small coins - they didn’t seem to be worth much even though God was pleased… but today, a banker has shown otherwise. He estimated that had her monetary gift been placed in a bank drawing just 4 percent interest compounded semi-annually, the account would now be worth 4.8 billion trillion dollars. (That's $48 and 20 zeroes.) If a financial institution can multiply the value of two small coins like that, just think what God can do with our gifts.
· Sowing a seed in faith is using what you have been given to obtain what God has promised. If you sow the seed of diligence on the task you are doing, your harvest is compliments. Proverbs 13:4 told us that, “No matter how much a lazy person may want something, he will never get it. A hard worker will get everything he wants.”[1] In other words, “He who wants milk should not sit on a stool in the middle of the pasture expecting the cow to back up to him.”
Here is something we have heard before: Everything we have came from God. Everything we will receive in our future will come from God. He is our total source for everything in our life. He gave it away and we are to follow in His example. He wants us to have his blessings, Psalm 84:11 says, “The Lord is our protector and glorious king, blessing us with kindness and honor. He does not refuse any good thing to those who do what is right.”[2]
The secret of our future is determined by the seeds we sow today. If we open our hearts, God will open His windows. When we let go of what is in our hand, God will let go of what is in His hand.
There are always those that grab hold of life because they “get it” and those who “don’t get it.” A man was driving on a lonely road one summer day. He saw a car with a flat tire pulled over on the shoulder of the road. A woman was standing next to the car and looking down in dismay at the flat tire. The man decided to pull over and play the Good Samaritan. He grew sweaty and dirty in the hot sun as he changed the tire. The woman was watching him and when he was finished she said, “Be sure and let the jack down easily now, because my husband is sleeping in the back seat of the car!”
Author Nicolas Boileau states, “He is most fatigued who knows not what to do.” But our helpful man probably understood that there is no record of anybody ever being drowned in sweat.
Earlier we quoted Galatians 6:7 "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap" and it becomes especially important in this story: A blind Indian beggar sat beside a road, fingering the rice in his little bowl. Wearing only a loincloth, he sat in poverty beside a road that stretched from here to there, but nowhere in particular. Infrequent travelers occasionally gave him a little rice. One day he heard the thunder of a chariot in the distance. It was the grand entourage of the maharajah. This was a moment that had never come before. Surely the great one would stop and give him baskets of rice.
The golden chariot of the maharajah stopped right in front of the poor beggar. The great one-stepped down and the beggar fell before him. Then the sky seemed to fall in. "Give me your rice," said the great one. A fearful, hateful, scowl masked the face of the beggar. He reached into his bowl and thrust one grain of rice toward the maharajah. "Is that all?" said the great one. The beggar spat on the ground, cursed, and threw him one more grain of rice. The great one turned, entered his chariot, and was gone.
The beggar--angry, empty, and crushed--fingered the remaining rice he had hoarded in his bowl. He felt something hard, different from the rice. He pulled it out. It was one grain of gold. He poured out his rice, caring nothing for it now. He found one other grain of gold. Had he trusted the great one, he could have had a grain of gold for every grain of rice.
"The finest gifts are given, not after waiting until need has to ask, but by the person whose eye sees, whose heart feels, and whose hand is stretched out even before any request is made."[3]
Perhaps if we remember no more from today’s journey then the following words and say them some time each day we will have remembered much: Father, thank You for showing us that if we plant good seeds, we will reap a great harvest. We are expecting the miracle of harvest You promised. Lord, keep this principle of sowing always before us and teach us to honor it always. Perhaps, now are we comfortable enough to say, “I think I shall?”
|
Send mail to srpc@presbyteriancv.org with
questions or comments about this web site.
|
