Precious Seed 1985

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his seeds with him. About 700 years before the birth of Jesus, in the city of Jerusalem, the prophet Isaiah, under the anointing of the Spirit, for sure, wrote these words, which are contained in Isaiah chapter 11, starting in verse 1. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.

He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist, and faithfulness the girdle of his loins. The wolf shall lie down with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kin, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and the little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall feed, their young shall lie down together, the lion shall eat straw like an ox, the sucking child shall play over the hole of the snake, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. What a glorious picture of how it's going to be when the Messiah brings his righteous reign and all tears are wiped away, and all sorrow and all pain and all injustice and all death and all sickness are gone, and things are like they should be, like we know in their hearts they should be.

But we read a passage like this, and then we look out over the world as it really is, and we see all the pain and all the injustice and all the violence and all the absurdity and the chaos and the deceit. Then we look into our own hearts and we see all these same things, and we say, when? When, O Lord, will this change? When will the Messiah bring his righteous reign? When will he vindicate the poor of the earth and the ones who have been meek and stepped on and walked all over? When will he slay all wickedness and bring all lies to an end and set up his righteous reign that will last forever? When? Of course, we all know the promise that on a day known only to the Father, he will come back. Jesus, the crucified and risen one, will return, and he will bring all things under his authority, and he will set up a kingdom which will never end.

But the issue for us today, right now, is what do we do in the meantime? What do we do? Do we build the walls thicker and then sit behind the walls and wait? This has been tried for 20 centuries in many, many places by many, many people, as if any wall that we could build could ever keep the Father of Lies out, as if there were any kind of wall that we could build that would deliver us from the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye and the pride of life. The glorious thing, of course, is that we don't have to hide behind any walls with our hands and feet, but that even now, while we wait for this to happen, God has given us the beginning of that kingdom in a real way, in what we call the seed of the kingdom. And this seed of the kingdom is talked about all through Scripture from beginning to end.

He gives us this seed, and when we plant this seed, the life of the kingdom springs up right before our eyes. And we begin already to experience and see and touch righteousness and peace and healing and life and glory and worship. All these things begin to appear.

They're here now. All we have to do is sow the seed and live in what we see, what comes forth. In the early days, when the church first began, the believers in apostolic days were very, very conscious of the fact that Jesus was coming back very soon.

They lived for that day, and they were aware of the fact that injustice and all kinds of chaos and things wrong would continue until Jesus returned. And yet, those people never sat behind the walls and waited. They went out with this seed.

First of all, they had the seed there, and they sowed it among themselves, and they began to experience kingdom life in their fellowship. The church was just a foretaste of heaven for them, a retreat from all the other hassles. They came together, and they received this, and they enjoyed it, and they basked in it.

And then they went out with this seed into the world, to the places where they worked 60 or 70 hours a week, to the places where they lived, among their relatives, even to their enemies, out in the public square, out on the streets. And they sowed the seed. And everywhere they sowed this seed, it sprang up with healing and with life and signs of the kingdom of God, righteousness and truth, and changed lives.

About 200 to 250 years after this passage was written by Isaiah that we just read, some other things began to take place. But during this 250 years, it seemed like everything for the people of Israel and Judah, everything was downhill. The city of Jerusalem finally fell under the judgment of God, and the walls were broken down, and the temple was burned to the ground, and the people were dragged away in chains and ropes to Babylon.

And there they languished for 70 years under the reign of Cyrus the Persian. Some of them were permitted now to return to Jerusalem, to this glorious city that their parents and grandparents had talked about with such joy. And on their way back to Jerusalem, somebody in one of these crowds that was heading back to Jerusalem wrote the words that we have contained now in Psalm 126.

When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like then that dreamed. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then said they among the heathen, the Lord hath done great things for them.

The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. And in this psalm, we have really the essence of kingdom life. We have the explanation of how it is that people who are in the kingdom of God and walking in the life of the kingdom of God are able to keep going without losing heart, without burning out, as they wait for that day.

The truth that keeps them going, very simple. When you sow kingdom seed, you get kingdom life. And even if the whole world is infested with thorns, if you sow life, you get life right in the middle of a thorn.

Now, we don't have the kingdom in its fullness. Now, we know that as we look around us and even as we look within us. We can see much is missing.

But what we do have today in this place is kingdom seed. We have that. And when we sow that kingdom seed, it springs up by itself.

It has life of its own, the same life that causes that shoot to come up from that stump of Jesse, that branch to begin to bear fruit. That life is in the seed. And the place where we sow the seed is out there where we live.

And those places where we work, those houses where we live, those neighbors we're among, those relatives, that's where we sow. And simple things. For instance, when we go visit somebody in a hospital or in a nursing home, we're sowing the seed.

When we give food to somebody who's hungry, we're sowing the seed. When we give shelter to somebody who needs it or clothing to somebody who needs it. When we welcome a stranger, when we share some money with somebody who has none, when we speak a word of encouragement to somebody who desperately needs to hear one, or sometimes a word of warning to somebody who needs to hear that, we're sowing the seed.

And then when we give testimony to the one who is behind all that, Jesus, we're sowing the seed. And that seed grows. All we have to do is keep sowing it.

Just keep sowing it. If we think, for instance, of all the places we... Take this congregation right here, this assembly. All the places we were yesterday and the things that people did in this flock, not only to God, you know, lots of things that happened out there in the round of things that were being taken care of, you know, whatever it was, the shopping or the fixing of the house or going to see somebody or talking on the telephone.

But it's the sowing of the seed, or it can be. And things that took place in here yesterday, the baskets that went out, you know, are a form of sowing the seed. And it was interesting.

We had a funeral here for Alfea Sovali, who came here years and years ago and has spent many, many years in a nursing home. And the funeral was scheduled here for 11 o'clock, but the director came quite early, just to make sure that everything was right. And Mr. Sadducee came here long before I arrived.

And so he came over on the other side and he met people who were packing the baskets. And this man received such a welcome from whoever it was he talked to, all these people he talked to. And saw this was going on.

He was deeply moved. And he kept talking about this. And so what was happening was that unconsciously people were sowing the seed just by helping him with his problem.

You know, what do I do? Where do I go? And this and that. And a seed was sown in this man's life. Then we had the funeral, while the baskets were going out all over the place.

And people came in here who hadn't been inside the building for 15, 20 years. And it was again an opportunity to do more than just go through a routine. It was an opportunity to sow some seed.

And all the things that all of us did, wherever we were yesterday afternoon. Another example was when Marcus Rodriguez and Lynn Lauka and I talked to a man who claimed that he loved God, but he didn't like Him. I love God, but I don't like Him.

He said, God's just interested in His own holiness. He don't care about me. And he was a man who was very gracious for all that.

He was angry. He lived a pretty tough life. He had had some really tough breaks all through his however many years it was, 26, 27 years.

Went to Earhart Junior High when he first came to Detroit. But anyway, we sat there, and he was very gracious to us. He did most of the talking, and then Marcus gets a word in, and he talks some more, and then Lynn gets a word in, and he talks some more, and I get a word in.

But all the time, we're sowing the seed. Finally, it turns out this man's mother has cancer. Who's taking care of your mother? I am.

Ten kids in the family, and I'm looking after her. Beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous.

You can't do anything but praise God for that man's love for his mother. Well, can we go and pray with your mother? Okay, wait until I finish my beer. Okay.

We wait until he finishes his beer. And we go to it, and he says, okay, you can pray for her. I'm going to stay out in the kitchen.

I don't believe in prayer. And I'm sure he was almost hiding his tears while he was out in the kitchen. Marcus prayed for this woman who was so appreciative, and it was just absolutely a foretaste of heaven.

And again, it was a way of sowing the seed in this man's life. And his name is Manwa, Emmanuel, meaning God with us. A gorgeous thing, and we pointed that out to him about five times.

Oh, my. What you have to do, you have to be generous when you sow the seed. You know, and we see this in our Lord's illustration, his parable.

You know, the man who goes in, what is it, in Luke 8, and he sows the seed. He doesn't test the soil and get skimpy with it. He just keeps sowing it out.

And he knows that maybe three-quarters of it is going to apparently go to waste, but some of it is going to grow. And so he keeps sowing it. But the gorgeous thing, in each of our lives, every one of the places where we were yesterday, there were the opportunities, and they will be today, wherever we go today, and tomorrow, the same thing.

And Christmas time is especially a wonderful time because people's hearts tend to be more tender. Even the ones who say, you know, they love God, but they don't like Him. Or maybe they don't even love Him.

But their hearts will tend to be more tender. Here's a wonderful time to just sow the seed, and sow the seed, and sow it with confidence. Be generous with it.

You know, instead of often, as we often do, we say, I'm wasting my time. You know, what good is this doing? You know, nobody wants to listen to me. Or nobody appreciates the fact that I came to see them.

Or whatever we do, we go to the hospital, you know, we drive miles and miles through the snow to see this person in the hospital, and they say, I'm sleepy, I don't want to talk. That's okay. You know, praise God, you win.

And you and I, when we do this, we become broken bread and poured out wine. We become the sacramental presence of God in their midst. And when we touch their lives, in whatever way we do, God touches them.

Know that. Be sure of it. Be confident of it.

Because some of that seed absolutely will grow. People, having tasted the mercy of God flowing through you, will turn to Him and find their way into His kingdom. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed, that's what it is, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. Now everybody sows some kind of seed. That's what everybody's doing.

All the time we're sowing seed of some kind. And the kind of seed we sow is what we reap. That's what we're going to reap.

If we sow to the flesh, we reap corruption. If we sow to the spirit, we reap life. And if we sow kingdom seed, we receive and reap kingdom life.

And so the one who one day will judge the earth in righteousness, and will judge the poor with equity, and bring justice and fairness and mercy and joy and glory to this earth, stands in our midst right now. And he's the one who pours living seed into our hearts. This is why we come together week after week.

The seed is his living word, his living presence, his living spirit. And the meaning of our life is that we sow this seed. And so he gives it to us again, a fresh today, a fresh batch of seed.

And he says, sow this until I come back. Cause the places where I have put you to see the truth of God and to see the glory of God's kingdom by sowing this seed. And even if you go out there in tears, you're going to come back in joy.

Even if you walk around weeping as you sow that seed, as you see all the problems and troubles, keep sowing, keep sowing it, don't give up. Because you're going to come back rejoicing. You're going to be bringing your seed with you.

Don't lose heart, don't get fainted, sow the seed. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his seed with him.