Bible Study Lesson- The Kingdom Of God - The Power Of A Seed Part 4

Welcome to episode 35. You know how it starts.

The Gospel of John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Okay, episode 35. I'm going to pick up where we left off from 34. We were talking about the power of the seed, and we find our scripture in Mark 4:26-29, where Jesus says, the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground And then we— I want to remind you that we also have tied in Matthew 6:33, which says, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed. And we've talked about the scattering of seed, and we've talked about the harvesting. That's the— that's the man's— you're— that's yours and my part. But what I wanted to continue to talk about was the, the idea that time must come in between those two spots, the scattering of seed and the harvesting. And if, if you get this messed up, and I think that's where a lot of people today in the body of Christ, and it's frankly where, I mean, where I've messed up, you know, I've gotten used to the instant access to things. You know, we talked about the drive-through food, and we've talked about the Instant Pot and instant mashed potatoes and instant everything. But when you start dealing with God and you start throwing time in there, I just want you to understand that God's not in a hurry. And I, I believe that God— there was a reason that Jesus, when he was here on earth, that he walked just about everywhere he went. Now, he got in a boat and he got on a donkey, so I don't want anybody writing in telling me he didn't walk everywhere he went. But Jesus walked most places, and this was God on earth. So God himself did not get in a hurry, and one of the fruits of the Spirit is patience. So if you're going to walk everywhere, you can't get in much of a hurry. Now, I'm not saying that God never ran, but I think the Phillips, Craig, and Dean song, "When God Ran," I love that picture. When God ran to me, I mean, that's a wonderful— and that's a side note, and that's a rabbit that I just started chasing. But God walked just about everywhere he went. So the kingdom of God, we, we need to understand that God is not in a hurry. And there's seed time and there's harvest, but there's also seasons. Now, if you throw the seed, there's a couple of things when we're throwing seed in. And then the next episode, we're going to talk about the different soils and the different pieces of ground that we're going to throw the seed on when we're going to go to a different scripture. But when you start putting the seed in the ground, it— there's a couple of things that it has to be good ground and it has to be the right time. You're not supposed to— I don't think most seed needs to be thrown out during winter. Winter is specific, and there's seasons. There's winter, there's spring, there's summer, and there's fall. So most of the seed planting is done, and I'm painting with a big broad brush, but most of the seed planting is done during the spring. So there's a certain time we're going to throw seed out, and then there's a certain time we're going to harvest. And in between all that time, the seed must grow. And then if we go back to Mark 4:27, 28, and 29, it pretty much says, and that we're going to sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow. He himself does not know how. So that's another aspect of this seed is that we don't have to understand everything. And that's the other reason why I'm even able to talk to you in this podcast, is that I don't, I don't claim to have all this figured out. I'm just, I just get into his word and I spend a little bit of time and I meditate and I think about, God, what are you trying to teach me in this? And I ask the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, what is it that you want me to learn from this verse or these verses, and what is it that you want me to pull out of this seed in the kingdom of God? And so as I spend some time in the word of God and meditating and thinking about it and rolling over the, the thoughts that go on in my head, and then you start— if you stay on this, like the seed time, and then when you read some other verses and other scriptures, you kind of get an idea that, you know, God's not in a big hurry. And then we go to 2 Peter 3:8 with God not being in a big hurry in your mind. And it says, but beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. And I'm going to link to my God and time calculator when I read this, and just to kind of show you how my mind works, and just to kind of— because I try to visualize things, and I, with, with some math, mathematical formulas. And it is kind of a neat tool, and I'll link to it. I had a— already had an episode. I'm not going to rehash it, but what I wanted to reiterate is God's not caught in time, and God doesn't see time the way we see time. And if you read the Old Testament and you look at how slow and how long things took, I think it sometimes gives us a false image of how things ought to happen. And things don't happen— God's ways are not our ways. And And so the way he gets things done, it's seedtime and harvest. And sometimes when you plant a seed, you've got to wait for it to grow. And that is all about the kingdom of God. And that's why I think part of it, you know, God's way of doing things where it— where Jesus said, you know, it's easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. I think that part of that is entering— if you've got millions and millions and millions of dollars, Why would you take time to get, to get anything? You probably wouldn't dedicate a lot of time to start a podcast doing like what I'm doing right now. I'm acquiring skills as I do this podcast. I'm learning how to deal with the microphone and the editing software and that type of thing. But these are skills that I had no idea 30+ days ago and things that as I'm doing these daily, I get better at it. It gets a little bit quicker. It's still taking me longer than it probably should. If I had millions and millions and millions of dollars and followers and I was an influencer, you know, you can— I can promise you they're not spending as much time on their podcast. They just hire it done. That's the thing about taking time and growing something in your life, something that's important. God wants you to take the time to do it. And that's why I'm trying to kind of take my time with this message, is Abram— remember when Abram The previous podcast we talked about in Genesis 16:16 where it, where it said that, you know, Abram was 86 years old, and in 17:1 we see a quarter inch in my Bible, we see that Abram is now 99. God didn't get no hurry with Abram, the father of many nations and the father of faith. It took 13 years to pick up Abram's story again, all of that time elapsed on Abram. He lived his life for 13 years and we have no idea what happened scripturally. Now, I mean, you could probably get an imagination and use your imagination and kind of go in your mind, kind of know if, if you can kind of picture he has a child from someone besides his wife and They're raising this kid, this child, and his wife doesn't much care for his maidservant who has the Ishmael. And so you can kind of get a picture that this didn't go well. And then we can go to Moses. As you're looking at this time element, you know, Moses was going to deliver the children of Israel in Exodus. It took him a while. You know, he kind of got ahead of God's plan and killed an Egyptian and then ran off in the desert. And I think— and I hadn't read that recently in the last few months, but it seems like it took him like 40 years maybe in the desert. It may have been 20, 20, 40 years he was on the backside of the desert learning, tending sheep. And I mean, it, it's a— it's amazing how God uses time to get people in a position to hear his voice and to do what He wants to have done. And I think that that's kind of where I'm at. And I may be getting— I tend to jump ahead of God a lot, and I want to apologize to Him right here on this podcast that, you know, a lot of times with my ready, fire, aim mentality, I just jump in and then I got to clean the mess up because that's not what God ordered. You know, it has moved me. I at least get to moving, and that's why I'm here is because I think it's just the way that God made me. It took me 28 years to get here in Jesus in Christ, because I was saved when I was 29, almost 30. I'm 57. 28 years later, I'm 57. So I'm— I tell people that I'm 20, you know, I'm a 28-year-old, I'm a 20-something in Christ, but I'm a 57-year-old in the body. I mean, I've got some miles on me, and I've had 29 years away from Jesus. So I don't really have a self-righteous bone, if you will. I've messed up so much in my earlier life that, you know, when I see people, you know, getting overly spiritual— and I, you know, I have a tendency to do everything— I try to do as much as I can through the Bible, but I try real hard to be relatable. Now, that doesn't mean that I've got to just dig in and do everything everybody else is doing, but I try to see how the other, you know, how the other person on the cross from me, whoever I'm talking to, how they're kind of relating and what filter they're using. And not everybody wakes up every morning and prays and reads the Bible and does, but I think they ought to. And that's enough of this episode. I want it to be a little bit shorter. I want to try to keep it around 10 minutes-ish. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna cut it off here. We're gonna— God's not trapped in time, and he uses time to, as, as a tool to kind of to kind of grow things, and we don't know how, and we don't necessarily know why, but we just need to bury the seed and let it grow. And tomorrow I think we're going to talk about the seed, and we're going to talk about the different soils that we throw the seed into, and we will pick that up on the next episode. I'll see you tomorrow.

Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.