High-Yield Seed
Genesis 39:1-41:16, Matthew 12:46-13:23, Psalm 17, Proverbs 3:33-35
Growing up in Nebraska, I learned a bit about farming and I enjoyed the results of the harvest. I lived within a two-mile jog of some great farms with fertile soil near the Missouri River. I liked fresh sweet corn so much that some of my friends nick-named me Corn Boy. Besides how great the corn tasted, one of the most amazing things to me about modern farming was and still is the yield that a farmer can get on an acre of land-one hundred, two hundred, three hundred bushels per acre. Not bad for a bag or so of seed! It’s not just ordinary seed though—hybrid seed, open pollinated seed, seed bred to fight disease, to fight drought, to mature more quickly, to resist specific insects. In our Bible readings for today, we find Jesus’ parable about seed and harvest. Like modern farmers, his focus is on high-yield seed.
Jesus defines high-yield seed as “someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23).
Jesus gives us a formula for becoming high-yield seed. We have to hear the word, really listen to it, study it, reflect upon it, and by God’s grace come to understand it. Then we have to produce. We have to live out the Word in our daily lives, obediently doing what God by His Spirit helps us to understand. In so applying God’s Word, in order to see success, we have to overcome problems and even persecution, and we have to overcome the temptation to turn away from the Word as the world tries to distract us with “the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth.” (Matthew 13:22).
In our readings today from Genesis, we see in Joseph the example of a man who epitomizes a life of “high-yield seed.” In Genesis 39:2 we read, “The LORD was with Joseph so that he prospered..” Again in 39:22, “the LORD was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.” Joseph literally blessed his master Potiphar with a high yield. Genesis 39:5 states: “The blessing of the LORD was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field.” The New Living translation says “his crops and livestock flourished.” In Genesis 41, we will see how Joseph went on to help the whole country of Egypt experience the blessing of increased yields. “During the seven years of abundance the land produced plentifully.” (Genesis 41:47)
There is a progression in Joseph’s life by which he becomes the high-yield example that he is. Joseph moved from pride to humility—from the bragging young man of dreams and a multi-colored coat to a slave who gave God credit for his success. In humility he moved into servanthood. He learned to truly serve all of those around him. In humility and service to others, Joseph learned to use the spiritual gifts that God gave him—interpreting dreams and giving prophetic direction to people about what God revealed to him about the future. In humility, in service, in spiritual power, Joseph also learned to walk in righteousness and not to sin. As he said to Potiphar’s wife, “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” Like the high-yield seed of modern agriculture, Joseph learned to resist that which destroys.
In Proverbs 3:33 today we find this verse: “The LORD’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the home of the righteous.” Joseph demonstrated the blessing on the righteous and King David described this kind of righteousness in today’s Psalm 17: 3-5 “Though you probe my heart, though you examine me at night and test me, you will find that I have planned no evil; my mouth has not transgressed. Though people tried to bribe me, I have kept myself from the ways of the violent through what your lips have commanded. My steps have held to your paths; my feet have not stumbled.”
Hearing the Word, understanding it, doing it—in humility, in service to others, exercising our spiritual gifts, and walking in righteousness, may each of us find today in the words of Jesus and the example of Joseph a challenge to so yield ourselves to God’s will for our lives that we will become high-yield seed--producing a great harvest with hundreds, even thousands of people accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior because of us!
May God Bless You for the Harvest,
Pastor Paul
No comments:
Post a Comment