I must admit, that while I’ve read this little section of Scripture many times, I have usually read over it pretty quickly, not taking the time to understand it’s meaning. Here’s a man sowing some seed, and the next involvement he has with it, is when he comes to harvest it. Now, we understand that there are things that we can do to enhance the health of a growing plant, thereby setting up an environment for it to bring forth a greater yield, but the important point here, is that the real miracle of a seed going through its process and bringing forth a crop, is something that God does.
I read, the other day, that as advanced as we have become in our understanding of how things work, we really still don’t understand the miracle of the seed. We can analyze a seed and label all of its parts, but when we try and reproduce it from man-made stuff, it will look and taste like a seed, but it will not germinate and grow. Even in such things as cloning, which is somewhat unsettling to even think about, scientists have to begin with some parts that God made; in other words, they have to get God’s seed.
Jesus said that we, as His disciples, are to bear fruit. God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth, and subdue it. The fruitful, the multiplying, and the other things are not all the same thing; in other words, it means more than just go have lots of babies. That’s what the multiply meant, but the fruitful meant that they were to accomplish the will of God in their lives, and that’s what Jesus meant when He said that we are to bear fruit. Now, bearing fruit is not the process, but the end result. It is the characteristics that flow out of our lives, as detailed in Galatians 5:22-23, and it is other people coming to Christ, as a result of their inter-action with us.
With that said, let’s look again at the text:
Seeds must be sown
It doesn’t matter how good your ground is, it doesn’t matter how much you might water, weed, and fertilize it, if you don’t put down the seed, it’s not going to happen. Not only that, it doesn’t matter how good your seed is, if it’s not put to the ground, it’s not going to happen.
The context of this chapter is that the word of God is a powerful seed, and that the human heart is the ground into which it must be planted. Having a Bible in your hand is not enough. Even memorizing Bible verses and passages is not enough. The devil can quote scripture better than you can! In order for the seed of the word of God to release its power and bring forth its miracle of fruit-bearing in your life, it has to get to your heart, because that’s where the ground is. By the way, there may be a real significance in the fact that God created man from the dust of the earth (made him out of dirt,) in that He was making him to be ground for His precious seed, His word.
As important as prayer is, it is not as important as sowing God’s word into your heart. Prayer is like adding water and fertilizer to the ground of your heart, it will certainly create a more favorable environment for the seed to produce more bountiful fruit, but without the seed of the word, there’s nothing to bring forth. That may sound like a radical statement to you, but it’s true. To get a crop, you have to sow some seed.
Time must elapse
In the natural realm, we pretty much know how much time has to elapse for the seed to bring forth its fruit. A farmer, or gardener, knows when he sows his seed, the approximate time that he will need to be there to harvest the crop. There is a time that must elapse between the time of sowing and reaping. That’s why we are told in Galatians 6:9, “And grow not weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” In other words, we are not to get discouraged, or give up, if the crop doesn’t immediately come forth. Everything in life works under the principle of seed, time, and harvest. That’s the way the population grows: a seed is planted, nine months of time goes by, the harvest, or the birth of the baby takes place.
The elapsed time is more difficult to define, when it comes to sowing the seed of the word of God. There are times when God immediately brings forth a harvest. I have sowed the seed of God’s word in prayer, for instance, and have seen immediate harvest of results. On the other hand, I have seen time go by, while I waited for the harvest of results. In retrospect, I realize that in almost every instance where I had to wait, when the harvest came, I was able to understand why the waiting was necessary.
In this text, the man who sowed the seed would “sleep by night and rise by day,” implying that this sleeping and rising was a repeated process over a period of time. Why would God make His children wait for any amount of time to have their prayers answered, when they have prayed according to the word of God? It is not because He wants us to suffer a while, first, but it is because He wants us to be wise stewards of that with which He intrusts us, whether it be health, finances, or anything else. And, it’s really not that God is waiting to act on our behalf, because the fact is, He has already given us everything that pertains to life and godliness, according 2 Peter 1:2. Most often the wait time is not us waiting for God to act, but it is God waiting for us to get into position so that the harvest will be a blessing and not a curse to our lives.
A miraculous process
The text says that this man sleeps and rises, and the seed sprouts and grows, but the man doesn’t know how. When the good seed gets into the good ground, it just happens! The seed is the word of God, and the ground it you, the child of God. You get the word of God in you to the point that it gets down in your soul and becomes a part of you, and something miraculous is going to happen. You are going to sprout, grow, and bring forth fruit!
Verse 28 says something that we could so easily read right over the top of: “For the earth yields crops by itself...” God has put within the born again child of God the necessary elements for bringing forth a crop. But, earlier in the chapter, we plainly see that the ground has to be “good ground.” Good ground in the Christian life is ground that has had the stones of past hurts removed, that is subject to having the weeds and thistles of present sinful thinking taken out, that has enough depth about it to keep the enemy from snatching the seed away, and that has the proper nutrients to germinate and grow the seed. All of these qualities come from a proper relationship to God’s word, which is necessary to have a proper relationship with God, Himself.
Another important thing to realize about this process is seen in the latter part of verse 28: there is a constant state of change. First, it’s one thing, then it moves to something else, then something else, all the while moving toward the intended fulness of fruit-bearing. Now, this is where I challenge you to look into the mirror of your soul. Are you changing? You might say, “Well, God doesn’t change, and I’m not going to either.” Then, you’re going to miss the boat on the whole idea of fruitful Christian living and abundant life. The reason God doesn’t change is because He is perfect and understands everything completely to begin with, but that’s not true of you and me. I do not say this bragging, but as a testimony to the wonderful grace and power of God: when I look at my life, I have changed so very much, and am still in that process. There are people who will go to hell, because they were totally unwilling to change. There are Christians who will live defeated lives, all throughout their days on this earth, because they are not willing to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God and resist the devil, so that he will flee from them. Humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God, means aligning ourselves with the word of God, and thinking, acting, and speaking the things that God says.
The Bible says a great deal about Christian growth, and it is something that we are to purpose to do; however, we do it by feeding on the sincere milk of the word and being doers of the word, and not hearers only. For instance, a child doesn’t tell his dad, “Daddy, I’m going to grow while you are at work today.” He just eats, plays, and does what a little kid is supposed to do, and growth just happens. That’s the way it’s supposed to be in your life, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be in the Lord’s church.
Let me recap that for you in a sentence: Understand that constant change is part of the process, and that healthy ground is going to make it happen.
There’s a time to put in the sickle
Whatever else the seed sower might, or might not do, the two most important things he’s going to do is sow the seed and reap the harvest. Faith is a very important element in both of these, where the word of God is concerned.
At the end of every preaching service, we give people an opportunity to publicly declare what they have privately committed. That’s very Scriptural. In the matter of becoming a Christian, for instance, God has already done the necessary things for it to happen in your life. The only other thing that He is going to do is to send His Spirit to convict you of your sin, and of your sinful condition. Then, you must sow a seed. It is the seed of God’s word, concerning your situation. In effect, you say, “Lord, You said that if I would turn to You in faith, You would save me. I am doing that, right now.” You immediately reap a harvest of peace, joy, and assurance. You do that by putting in the sickle of your faith and receiving the harvest of the promise of His word. That doesn’t mean that you are already in heaven, nor does it mean that you have already come into everything that you are going to come into, but it does mean that, by faith, you believe that you receive all the promises of God, concerning the saving of your soul.
It works the same way in the area of fruitful Christian living. You sow the seeds of seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and by faith, you just go ahead believe that you receive all the promises of God for those who are His.
