I remember when Oral Roberts, the Evangelist, was going in his tent meetings, and I was a boy, and he was teaching on seed time and harvest, and it swept the country. Sowing and reaping. If you sow, you’re going to reap. And people started sowing seeds with intentionality. And all that didn’t step into it and criticized it, because they thought we ought to give just because we’re giving, not expecting to receive.
But the problem with giving without expecting to receive, is if I sow without harvest, then my giving is just philanthropy, and eventually I will give out. No matter how rich I am, if I give without any expectation of return, I will eventually give out because I am a limited resource.
So forgive me, I do want something back at some point. Not all the time, not from everybody, but at some point, I want something back. I want I give people what I value, and it’s a sign that what I give you is what I value. And yes, I want it back.
Whatever I have to do to be in the kind of soil, the kind of country, the kind of community that will give me something back, I want it back. Are you hearing what I’m saying? I am afraid that too many times we have spent so much focus on teaching you to be good seed, that we haven’t taught you the power of good soil. And so, when we come to soil issues, the seed ignores the soil.
We flick the channel, “That has nothing to do with me.” We close our eyes, because we have been taught to be good seed, but we have not been taught to pay attention to soil. And yet, the Bible is clear. Jesus says, “The sower went forth sowing seed. And some fell by the wayside, some fell amongst rocks, some fell amongst stones.”
My sister and I were talking the other day. I was telling her what an amazing person she is, that all of our lives together and all the things that God did in my life, not once in all of the years that I’ve known her, and she was there, when mama had me, have I ever known her to be jealous of me. Not once, not ever.
She has always been my cheerleader and my greatest fan. And she said, “How can I be jealous of you? You’re my brother.” I said, “A lot people have siblings that hate them, that are jealous of them, that hope they choke.” And some of my development has to be that God planted me in an environment of people that supported me: my brother, my sister, my mother, my father. They all supported me.
You can have good seed, but if you’ve been in bad soil, people who hated you, environments that denied you, education that underserved you, communities that limited you, mentalities that poisoned you. Oh, do you hear what I’m saying?
If your soil wasn’t right, it doesn’t mean that you’re not right, but if your soil wasn’t right, it’s going to affect how you root and how you grow. And you might grow a little bit.
The Bible says, “You can grow for a while, but then the thorns will choke you out, or the rocks will not have enough soil for your roots to grow.” Are you blaming God for something you ought to be blaming the soil for?
You cannot take a peach seed and plant it in a teaspoon of dirt, and expect it to grow. Though the teaspoon of the dirt is the same size as the peach seed, it will not grow. The seed will only grow when it is planted in something bigger than itself. And I want to know where are planted this morning.
Are you planted in something bigger than you, or have you always been planted in teacups, surrounded by little dirt, little resources, small-minded people, narrow, limited places, that never let you stretch to reach your capacity. Sometimes, you got to go where the corn is, where the table is spreading and the feast of the Lord–oh yes, oh yes, somebody gets what I’m saying this morning.