The Blessing of Generosity – Part 3 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Welcome friends to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you tuned in. Today, we’re gonna be sharing on the blessing of generosity and we’re gonna be talking specifically about the parable of the sower. In the parable of the sower, Jesus said, if you can understand this parable, then you can understand every parable in the kingdom of God. So open your heart and receive the good word of God today and be blessed. Friends, it’s so good to have you with us. We’ve been sharing all of this week on the blessing of generosity and we’ve been talking about seed time and harvest, which I believe is the first principle of the scripture and it’s a very powerful principle and it still works. God said in Genesis 8:22, as long as the earth remains, seed time and harvest, summer and winter, cold and heat, shall not cease as long as the earth is here. So praise God, as long as the earth remains, there’s gonna be provision on the earth for people of the earth. So we talked about that. We talked about in Genesis chapter 26, how Isaac dwelled in the land. You know, there was a famine in the land, but the Lord told him to stay there. So he stayed there and he sowed there and he reaped in the same year a hundredfold. And it says that he grew great and he became very prosperous and he had possession of flocks and herds and a great store of servants and the Philistines envied him. But you know, there’s something about just doing what God tells you to do and staying where God tells you to stay and just being diligent. Praise God, today we’re gonna move into Mark chapter four and we’re gonna talk about the parable of the sower. Jesus said in Mark chapter four, I think it’s verse 13, but he said that if we could understand this parable, then we could know all parables. This is a principle that just works in the word of God and we wanna keep moving into what God ultimately has for us. And so when we look at this in Mark chapter four, Aaron, you can just go ahead and share, but Jesus was talking about this parable, the sower and how, you know, all the principles of God’s kingdom operate by this simple parable.

 

  We’ll start reading here in Mark four, verse three, it says, listen, behold, a sower went out to sow and it happened as he sowed that some seed fell by the wayside and the birds of the air came and devoured it. Some fell on stony ground where it did not have much earth and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, it was scorched because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked it and it yielded no crop. But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced some 30 fold, some 60 and some 100. And he said to them, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.

 

  Praise God. So when you see this parable, the sower, I mean, and these are just principles that they work and Jesus began to talk about it. He said, you know, after he shared that, those who were with him in the 12, they asked him about this parable. And he said, unto you it’s given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, unto those who are on the outside, these things are done in parables. You know, Jesus could share with a parable and he could teach his disciples the intimate principles of the kingdom of God at the same time, he could share a natural principle that people that maybe weren’t on the inside could understand from. So he could keep people connected, even though they might not have really understood what he was saying. And he went on and he said, these things are done in parables that seeing they may see and not perceiving, hearing they may hear and not understand, lest at any time they would be converted and their sins would be forgiven. He said, don’t you know this parable and then how will you know all parables? So if you can understand the parable of the sower, you can understand all the parables. And he said, the sower sows the word. So there are three main things that we see, you know, in the parable of the sower. First of all, we see the seed. And in this case, the seed is the word. Secondly, we see the sower. In this case, I believe that Jesus is the sower and he’s sowing the seed of the word of God. And the third thing we see is the ground. And the ground represents the heart condition of man. And I believe when you look at these different types of ground, it really reveals the different types of heart conditions that people have and really their attitude towards the word of God. Now on the first type of ground, the sower, the farmer was on the way to field and some seed fell out of his drill or fell out of the bag and it fell on the hard road where it didn’t have, you know, couldn’t get down in the soil and the birds came and ate that seed. And Jesus talked about this. He said, these are those who sowed by the wayside where the word is sown, but when they’ve heard, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their heart. Satan is an enemy of the word. And he wants to steal the word before it ever has a chance to get rooted down in your heart. Because he knows that if that word gets rooted down in your heart, you’re gonna become a productive fruit bearing member branch in God’s kingdom.

 

  No, we see from the very beginning, God’s a creator and saying he comes to bring destruction really. And we know that the word of God has creative power in it. You know, God spoke and created, there’s creative power. There is power to produce that the word of God is actually a seed like we’re talking about. So the enemy who’s against God, against his creation is gonna be against the word because there is just tremendous creative power in the word.

 

  Yeah, and Satan knows that if that word gets rooted down in your heart, you’re gonna become a threat to his kingdom. So you know what, when you’re not doing anything, when you’re not moving forward, when you’re not believing God, you’re not really a threat to the devil. But when the true word of God begins to be sown in your heart, you become a threat to the devil. You know, the Bible actually talks about this in the end of Hebrews chapter 10. It says, “Immediately after we enlightened, “we endured a great fight of afflictions.” I believe that’s because, you know, when you weren’t believing God for anything, when you weren’t believing God to prosper or believing God for health or believing God to fulfill your divine purpose in life, you’re not really a threat to the devil’s kingdom. You’re just kinda hanging out. But when you get full of the word of God and start believing God, you become a threat to his kingdom. And it talks about this. We oughta just turn over here really quickly to Hebrews chapter 10 and look at these scriptures. But in Hebrews chapter 10, it talks about this. I’ll find it, but it says in verse 32, “Call to remembrance the former days “in that after you were illuminated, “you endured a great fight of afflictions. “Partly while you were made a gazing stock, “both by reproaches and afflictions, “and partly while you became companions “of those who were so used.” Man, you start believing the word of God, you start hanging out with other people that are believing the word of God. And he says, “For you had compassion on me in my bonds “and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, “knowing that in yourselves you have in heaven “a better and enduring substance.” So you start believing the word of God and you become a sower, you become a giver. He says, “Cast not away therefore your competence, “which has great repayment of reward.” Now this word confidence in the Greek is the word parousia, and it means boldness, confidence, open plain, freedom in speaking, confidence, outspokenness, frankly speaking, free from fear. So when you get ahold of the good word of God, you become bold in your faith. And he says that boldness of your faith has a great repayment reward. But look at this in verse 36, he says, “For you have need of patience, “that after you have done the will of God, “you might receive the promise.” And this word patience is actually talking about steadfastness or consistency, endurance, perseverance. You gotta persevere if you’re gonna receive the promises. And so Satan wants to steal the word before it ever gets in your heart so that you don’t ultimately receive those promises and do major damage to his kingdom. And so he says, “For yet a little while, “he that will come will come and not tarry, “but the just will live by faith. “And if any man draw back, “my soul will have no pleasure in him. “But we are not of those who draw back “to perdition or judgment, “but those who believe to the saving of the soul.” So that Satan is the enemy of the word because he knows if you get ahold of the word and the word gets written down in you, the word is gonna cause you to bring a great harvest.

 

  Yeah, and we know throughout the parable of the sower, we see that the results, it’s not that the seed changed, it’s the variable there is the soil types or the condition of people’s hearts. And Jesus is the same, the seed is the same, the word of the God is the same, it’s consistent. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word remains forever. God’s word is consistent, but it’s the condition of man’s heart. That’s the variable here in the parable of the sower.

 

  And you know what? Your heart will bring forth whatever you plant in it. If you plant weeds in the ground, it’ll bring forth weeds. If you plant good seed in good soil, if you plant corn, it brings forth corn, or tomatoes, it brings forth tomatoes or squash, whatever you plant in it. But Jesus, if he’s sowing, he’s sowing the word. But you gotta have an open heart to receive the word of God so the word of God can bring forth the harvest that seeing you may see and hearing you may hear and you may understand so the word of God can bring forth the harvest. But again, Jesus said, if you can understand this principle, you know what? You can understand the whole kingdom. So let Jesus, allow Jesus to sow the word in your heart and allow the word to be get rooted and get grounded, get rooted and grounded in the word so the word could bring forth the harvest of the good things of God’s kingdom in your life. Praise God. But it’s not automatic. You know what? You are the one who has the control over the condition of your heart. So we need to open our heart towards the word of God. You know, James really talks about this in James chapter one. It says we were born again. We were begotten by the word of God that we’d be a first find fruit of his creation in verse 18. And then in verse 21, it says received with meekness, the engrafted word that’s able to save your souls. And then in verse 20 to verse 22, it says be doers of the word and not hearers only. But he said, whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty in verse 25 and continues therein, this person will be blessed in his deed. You know what? God wants you to be blessed. But really it’s how you allow the word to remain in your heart and what you do with the word that determines ultimately, if you’re gonna walk in the level of blessing that God wants you to walk in. We’re gonna come back more and talk about different aspects of this parable. So stay tuned and we’ll be right back. Blessings. Friends, I’m so glad that you’ve been connected with us while we’re talking about the blessing of generosity. We have these teachings and those live in church services available to you free of charge on our website at charischristiancenter.com in downloadable audio and video. Also check out my book, “Provision, Releasing Supernatural Increase in Your Life.” When the word of God says in the beginning, God created the heaven and earth. Amen. I believe the word of God and the Bible says, the entrance of the word gives light and gives understanding to the simple. So I take a simple attitude towards the word of God. When the Bible says it, that settles it. Friends, I’m so glad you stayed with us. We’re talking about seed time and harvest and we’re talking specifically from Mark chapter four about the parable of the sower. And Jesus said, if you could understand this parable, you can understand all parables. In other words, if you can understand the parable of sower, you can understand how the kingdom of God operates. And he said, the kingdom of God is a sower who went out to sow. And some of the seed he sowed fell on wayside soil. And when it fell on the wayside soil, it fell out of the bag or it fell out of the planter when the farmer was going to the field and it fell on the hard soil of the road and the birds came and ate it before it ever got root. But then he said, he got in the field and he began to sow. And there are three other types of ground that he talks about. And he said, in verse 16, he said, these, Mark four, verse 16, these are sown on stony ground who when they have heard the word immediately, they receive it with gladness. Man, I’ve seen people like this, that when they first hear the full gospel preached, that when they first hear what God promised them preached, divine healing, provision, peace, all the promise, they get really excited. But it says, because they have no root in themselves in verse 17, they endure for a time at afterward when affliction or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they’re offended. Some people get offended because of the word. You know, when I was sharing this series on the blessing of generosity, I had a couple of people just get offended because of the word. And I’m like, just read what the Bible says and believe it. But they’re offended because of the word, because they’ve been raised in religion. You know, religion will cause you to harden your heart toward the word of God and religious people will cause you to harden your heart towards the word of God so you can’t even believe what it says or just receive it for face value. And it says, when affliction or persecution arises for the word’s sake, this is what religious people do. They persecute you, right? They afflict you. Well, that healing stuff didn’t work for my Aunt Sally. And that prosperity stuff didn’t work for my Uncle Bill. Listen, you can’t tell me it doesn’t work. I’ve been believing it too long. And it’s working. I’m telling you, the word will work for anybody that will believe it. But you gotta let the word get rooted in your heart. Praise God.

 

  You know, in verse 17 there, it says, you’re talking about the stony ground, people who receive it immediately, but they have no root in themselves. And it talks about stumbling. You know, stumbling, another word for stumbling that’s often associated with stumbling is offense. And people often get offended because of the root that’s in them. Hebrews talks about beware, lest you have a root of bitterness springing up within you by which many have been defiled. So the root, what’s really deep down within you really matters. And man, you don’t wanna get bitter. You don’t wanna get offended, especially at the word’s sake.

 

  Praise God. You know, Aaron, I started out over 45 years ago hearing the full gospel preached with Andrew Wommack. I was just 14 years old and man, I didn’t get offended and I didn’t get bitter and I got better. And man, I was so excited and I, you know, I’ve kept believing it for these 45 years and this word is bringing a harvest in my life. And it’s a harvest of health and a harvest of blessing, a harvest of the promises of God. And I just can’t, I don’t even, can’t even imagine what my life would look like if I hadn’t believed these promises. But there are a lot of people that were in those meetings. Some, a lot of them in my own family and some of them, they’re not even serving God today. And they’re, you know, just have terrible tragedy and problems and, you know, they’re, you know, and this sometimes happens, you know, why do bad things happen to good people? Well, because there’s a devil. We’re in a world that’s affected by sin and by Satan. But listen, you don’t have to give in to all this junk. You can believe God. You can believe the promise of God. You can believe the word of God. And if you’ll believe the word of God, you know what? I believe that the word of God is indifferent. You know, seed is indifferent. Seed will work. Praise God, these principles work. And if you plant this seed, this is like you said, the sower here is Jesus, the seed is the word. And if you plant the word of God in good soil, it’s gonna produce a good harvest. There’s no way around it. But a lot of times people get caught up by the devil’s traps.

 

  And man, just stumbling and getting offended. Oftentimes people just take a exit ramp from believing God, from staying connected to good ministries just because they get offended. And often it’s over really silly things that don’t matter.

 

  Yeah.

 

  The enemy tries to get people twisted up in their thinking and get people to be offended over little things that don’t matter. And really the issue, the hard issue is pride. People get wrapped up in their own pride and that’s how the enemy tries to devour people is with pride.

 

  Yeah, the third kind of soil that we see here, the first one was the wayside soil. And Satan came immediately to steal the word that was sown in their heart because he’s an enemy of the word. ‘Cause he knows if you get ahold of the word and the word gets ahold of you, it’s gonna change your life. And you’re gonna make a difference and you’re gonna do damage to his kingdom. The second kind was the stony soil and that seed grew up really quick because it had no root in itself. When persecution or afflictions came, again, for the word’s sake, immediately they were offended. Then the third thing that we see in verse 18 and 19, he says, “These are they who are sown among the thorns “that hear the word.” And notice this, “The cares of life “and the deceitfulness of riches “and the lust of other things choke the word “and it becomes unfruitful.” You know what, the devil is an enemy of the word. He doesn’t care how you get off, right? But people get so busy, right? The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, I don’t believe it’s wrong to have wealth. Abraham believed God, we talked about them earlier this week. Isaac believed God and they prospered. And I believe God wants all of his people to prosper, but you never wanna let things, right, take the place of your relationship with God. And you don’t wanna let cares choke the word, right? And the deceitfulness of riches. It’s not, we’re not serving those riches. You taught a great message on mammon from Matthew 6:24. And you said mammon is the personification of wealth. So what that ultimately says is you don’t worship money. It’s all right for you to have wealth, for you to have money. In fact, I think there are a lot of promises to God’s people for that. But you never wanna let money have you. So he says the deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other things. There’s all kinds of things. You can get just busy. You know, people just get busy doing all kinds of stuff. And they forget about God. They forget, you know, God told the children of Israel, when you get in the promised land, when you get into fields that you haven’t planted and houses full of good things that you didn’t put in there. And when you get into vineyards that you didn’t plant and you’re reaping these harvests that you didn’t sow, don’t forget me. And a lot of people forget. And you never wanna forget God.

 

  And here in the United States, there’s actually a lot of affluence here in the United States. We have the biggest economy in the world. And there’s a danger just to becoming apathetic. And a lot of people here in America don’t really, they’ve just reached this point where they don’t see the need for a savior. And they’re taught that just anything goes. So I’m morally okay. I’m, you know, financially okay. I’m like, I don’t need a savior. And that’s a very dangerous place to be.

 

  Yeah, it’s terrible.

 

  So just having, you know, just having an affluence and it’s-

 

  It’s a blessing.

 

  Yeah.

 

  God wants to bless us. You know what? This is a blessed nation. And we’re blessed in the United States of America because our forefathers founded this country on principles of the word of God, of principles of the scripture. And those principles have led to prosperity and good things in this nation. But you never wanna let those things take place of God. And you never wanna get humanistic and think this is because of my good doing. You wanna keep your eyes on Jesus. But he says all these things, those sown among thorns, you know, when I grew up, I grew up in Eastern Colorado and we farmed the dry land. And we actually would farm every other year. And we would receive a harvest on the dry land, not the irrigated land, but every other year. And we would farm that soil three or four times in the summer and then plant, you know, at about the beginning of September, you know, basically hard red winter wheat. And we would plant that and then reap a harvest the next summer. But the whole point of us farming that soil, those three or four or five times that we farmed was to keep the weeds down so the soil would have ample moisture to support the seed, to support the harvest that we were gonna plant. And we would reap good harvest on it. But he says, these are those that are sown among the thorns because these things, cares of this world, deceitfulness of riches and less of other things, choke the word and the word becomes unfruitful. You never want to be in a place in life where you allow so many things to enter in and boy, the devil doesn’t care where you get off, that the word becomes unfruitful in your life. But verse 20 says this, these are those who were sowed on good ground as hear the word and receive it and bring forth fruit, some 30 fold, some 60 and some 100 fold. Man, the word of God is gonna bring forth the harvest in our life when we allow it. And Jesus says basically the whole kingdom operates on this principle of seed time and harvest, of sowing and reaping, of the sower and the seed and the condition of our heart. So if the condition of our heart is not right, we wanna turn the condition of our heart, we wanna turn our heart to the Lord so he can have a great harvest in our life.

 

  I just love that story to that parable that Jesus teaches about the parable of the sower ’cause we really see that the sower is constant, he’s just sowing seed. You know, Jesus, his ministry is constant. He’s the same yesterday, today and forever. His word never changes. We see that the seed is constant. The word of God is constant, it doesn’t change. So we need to be really aware of our heart. And you know, I know your mentor, Andrew Wommack has shared this, there’s those four types of soil and he really sees that with his ministry over several decades that it’s about a fourth of people that really receive the word and it starts working in their life and producing a harvest.

 

  Amen, praise God. And so you know what, the word is indifferent and the word will produce a harvest of good things, of the blessing of God in your life if you will believe it. And you know, believing starts ultimately with believing on the ultimate seed and the ultimate seed that God sowed into this earth was Jesus. So if you’ve never received Jesus, I wanna pray with you right now and give you this opportunity to pray with me. Just pray this simple prayer with me. Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your son. I believe that he died on the cross for my sins. I believe that you raised him from the dead and made him Lord. And right now I surrender my life to your authority. In Jesus name I pray, amen, blessings.

 

  When we step out in faith and tap into giving and receiving, there are tremendous promises available to us. Discover scriptural principles that will help you understand the abundant blessing that is connected to generosity. We are blessed to be a blessing. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching, “The Blessing of Generosity,” a $20 value free of charge. Download it today at charischristiancenter.com.

 

  Friends, our broadcast can now be seen by over 2/3 of the world’s population. And it’s our partners that have made this available. I wanna invite you today to become part of this blessing by becoming a partner of Charis Christian Center and Grace for Today. So we would love to hear from you and thank you so much for prayerfully considering this today, blessings. Praise the Lord, friends. I wanna invite you to church this coming Sunday morning, whether you’re in Colorado Springs or whether you’re wherever you’re at. If you’re in Colorado Springs, you can see us Sunday morning at 8:30 or 10:30 a.m. live, but you can also watch us with our live stream congregation at 8.30 or 10.30 a.m. Or you can go to our website and get it anytime at charischristiancenter.com.

 

  Thanks for watching Grace for Today. This broadcast has been made possible by our faithful partners. If you would like to become a partner, need prayer, or have a question, please call us at 719-418-4000. Or to partner online, go to charischristiancenter.com/give. You can write us at PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on Grace for Today.