Mark’s sermon looked at the topic of seeds. Without seeds, there can be no harvest; we have to plant the seeds in order to have germinated crops to harvest. As the quiz demonstrated, seeds don’t always look like the thing they grow into.
The tiny acorn…
… grows into the mighty oak tree (the ‘quercus robur’, as our resident horticulturalist informed us!)
Mark spoke from Jeremiah 17:7-8 TNIV:
God’s word is like a seed in our lives which we need to pass on to others. The Parable of the sower (Luke 8:4-15 TNIV) reminds us that seed is sown in different circumstances. The pessimist looks at this and sees only a 25% success rate, since the seed that falls by the wayside, on rocky ground or amongst thorns does not bear fruit. Looking at it from another perspective, however, the seed that does bear fruit goes on to produce a hundred-fold crop and therefore one person saved through our testimony can have a snowball effect in God’s kingdom.
1 Cor 3:6 TNIV reminds us that there are different roles (planting and watering, for example), but it is God who gives the increase.
God’s seed is planted in us in different ways:
1) His Word
2) His Spirit
3) A vision (‘vision villa’)
4) A dream (‘dream factory’)
The seed that is sown in our lives will bear fruit. Phil 1:6 TNIV reminds us that God will complete (bring to perfection, lacking nothing) the work He has begun in us. God is good at nurturing fruit in our lives. The cycle can then be repeated, as the seed is sown, grows into a tree that bears fruit which produces seeds which grow into trees that bear fruit and so on.