Kingdom Math | How One Seed Becomes a Forest

TRANSCRIPT

I've mentioned a couple of times when I've spoken that at university I studied environmental science and what you may not know though is that my love of animals, all things animals started much younger. I have loved animals for as long as I can remember. I've also loved learning, so you just have to keep that in mind.

Before I confess this next thing, like I did love school. I was very studious. I was. The geek let's just put it out there. That's just to frame what comes next. When I was about seven, my mom and dad had saved up and they bought my sisters and I the complete World Book. Encyclopedia set. What a happy day in our household.

I wa must be nice, man. I was stoked. It was very exciting. For those of you in the room that have no idea what I'm talking about, when I was in. Lower primary, like very young. The internet didn't exist really yet, and so in order to learn things and do things for your research assignments, you'd go to amazing content like the World Book Encyclopedia.

There was like a book for every letter of the alphabet. It was amazing. Here's the thing though. I would set myself assignments. So I'd open up, is this right? Mom and dad? I would open up an encyclopedia and I'd read an entry, and then I would write a report for my mom and dad about what I just learned. So I started in a, and because I loved animals, I kept going to all of the animal content.

So I wrote reports on. VARs and axolotls and antelopes and every kind of animal that you can imagine, I would write a report, I'd submit it to my parents and I just, I loved it. Eventually I made my way to sea. It was a big one. There was a lot in sea. And at this point, and it wasn't punishment by the way, like this was self-inflicted.

The point, and you're wondering at this point, I'm sure, what has this got? To do with more meat. The chipmunk. The chipmunk, one of the subjects of one of my many assignments. Cute, fascinating, and a little hoarder. Hoarder. When food is available, the chipmunk gathers and it keeps on gathering.

They've got these cheek pouches that can stretch up to three times the size of their face, and it goes, tuck away all of the food back to their boroughs. They don't live in trees. They like hanging out in trees, but they've got these amazing borough systems under the ground and in those boroughs, they hide their food.

Now here's the interesting thing, because it's instinct for them. They're in the natural world. They gather. They gather, they just keep gathering. They can't turn the instinct off. And so what happens is they end up with actually too much. They physically cannot eat everything. That they hoard. In fact, research has been done to say that they gather so much that when they hide it in their burrows, they actually forget where they buried it because they have that much.

Are we very different from the chipmunk? I don't mean cute, in the way, not also our cheeks, in the way that we gather things, like somehow in our finite world, we think that we have to just keep gathering and holding onto things, and it's like we think that we've got this finite supply of something and that if I give out of that, it'll somehow result in me having less.

Would you agree? And yet, when I reflect on my life, the moments that I have felt most alive, the moments that I have felt most connected to God, most aware of his presence have been moments when I've let go, when I've decided not to hold that thing tightly. But to release it. And so those have looked, and I'm not just talking about money, by the way.

I am not just talking about finances. I'm talking about things like when forgiveness has felt costly. Yeah. But I forgave anyway, or when there have been seasons where it would have been easier to protect my heart, but I've offered it anyway. Or moments when interruptions have presented. I could protect my time or my schedule, but I decide not to.

And I think I've shared this before with you, and it's one time, and it happened a long time ago, but it's a moment in my life when I really remember. The Holy Spirit teaching me what that looked like, to let go of my time and my schedule and to allow him to do something. And it was, as I said, quite a few years ago, I was living in a complex that had no backyards, which is cool in a way that you get to connect with your neighbors.

And I was out the back hanging out my laundry. Just a very mundane. Routine thing. And I had a list a mile long and I was hurrying around 'cause I had guests coming over for dinner and I hadn't put the groceries away yet and the bathroom hadn't been cleaned. All the things, 'cause you want your house to look so clean so that when people arrive you say oh, sorry about the mess.

So I'm like, yeah, I've got this massive list and I'm out the back. I'm hanging out the laundry and my neighbor. Comes over and we're having just a really surface level conversation. And then she starts sharing about how much pain she's in. Her shoulder is so sore. And I feel this nudge, pray for her.

And so being the spiritual person I am, I'm like, yes, I will Lord tonight, after my guests have arrived and I've done all of the things that I need to do. And then I felt the nudge again. Pray for her. And there's a choice in that moment, isn't there? Am I gonna hold on or am I gonna release? And so I said to her, she knew I was a Christian and I said, Hey, like there's been times in my life when a.

My God has answered my prayers for healing, and I just wondered, would you mind if I prayed for you right now? She burst into tears. We had a beautiful moment, and as a result of that, we actually, I said in the end, would you be open to maybe just reading the Bible with me? And as a result of that, we went on a journey.

Then for probably the next six to seven months we would meet every single week. We'd open up the Bible, just on the backyard and we would talk about, and eventually she discovered Jesus. All of that to say I very nearly held on I so very nearly. That was my first instinct, 'cause it's in us, is to say, no, I've gotta hold onto this thing.

I had to hold onto my time. I had to get my to-do list done In the natural world, that instinct to hold onto things. And to think, I don't have enough I can't release this is natural, like life actually survives on it, but the kingdom of God is upside down. It's completely opposite. And Jesus shows us that multiplication that doesn't come from accumulation, it actually comes from being willing to release what you keep stays small.

But what you are willing to release, that thing grows. And so the theme, if you like, of my message this morning is simply this, that love grows. When it goes, love grows. When it goes, the world will tell you. Protect your heart, make sure it's worth it. Treat this thing like it's a limited resource.

Guard your energy. Maybe you've even heard of a phrase that I cannot stand at the moment, but it's being normalized in workplaces and it's quiet, quitting. Do you know what that is? Do the minimum required and not a single thing more. That's what the world is telling us and how the world is telling us to live.

But the kingdom of God is not built on minimal compliance. It's actually, and Jesus doesn't deny the cost of love, like he absolutely says there is gonna be a cost. But what he does is he redefines the outcome he calls us if you're a follower of Jesus. He calls us to live with open hands. He says to us, you need to plant the seed.

You need to sow the seed so that it's multiplied. You don't wanna save it in John 12. I want to introduce you to a little bit of scripture and to give you context here. Jesus is entering Jerusalem and it's quite triumphant. There are people that are waving palm fronds and they're shouting Hosanna, and it's all very much, kind of like a coronation moment back in the the olden times. And Jesus starts addressing two of his disciples. He speaks to Andrew and Philip because they have come to him and they've said, Jesus, there are some Greek gentiles and they wanna see you. They wanna know who is this Jesus? And this is what Jesus says in verse 23 of chapter 12.

He says, the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified. Now, just for a minute, imagine if you are the disciples and you hear Jesus start a phrase like that. You would be thinking, or I know I would. Maybe you would too, that like this is it. This is the moment. Jesus is gonna be glorified. He's gonna take the throne, he's gonna overthrow the Romans.

This is the moment. It's gonna happen with great power we're on. But Jesus continues the very next verse, he starts talking about seeds and he says, very truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. So what is he doing here?

He's actually preparing them for what is to come. He's reframing for them at this moment, his death on the cross. They think that a king is coming in glory and he's gonna take the throne. Jesus is saying that when that I'm gonna be planted, I'm going to be like a seed that falls into the dirt.

But when I die, when I go to the cross and I die, that's not the end. There's gonna be multiplication because multiplication does not look like power and control, but surrender. And through his resurrection, his life would actually release the mission. And it would be multiplied into millions of believers all over the world, literally a global harvest in the ancient world.

They would've really understood. This passage. Jesus talked a lot in parables, in stories that the people of his time really resonated with and understood. And at this time, the method that they used when they would plant seeds was a term called broadcasting. And what it looked like was that the fields would be plowed and then a farmer would literally go out.

With seed and he would scatter it and it would be intentionally scattered, but it would just be scattered in these massive arcs. The seed would just go out and, here's some useless information for you by the way. 'cause I know you're wondering 'cause I did. Broadcasting in the sense of farming is actually the term that led to what we now know about radio and TV broadcasting because it basically, essentially is scattering information widely.

There you go.

Totally off the point. But I learned it, so I thought you'd like to know that as well. The point is, if I was a kid back then and I'm, or someone perhaps that had come from the city and I've never seen farming happen before, I think that I would look at that farmer and I would think. How wasteful because the very thing that they're scattering the kernels of wheat were what they used to eat.

Like they would take those kernels and they would bake them into bread and so he's, the farmers are essentially scattering what some people might consider that they need to hold onto. I'm going to eat with this thing, but the result. This broadcasting, this scattering was literally fields of Bali, fields of wheat, a great harvest.

Now, my biology loving mind could not help doing a little bit more research, because what I love about the kingdom of God is that it's not like the kind of maths that we learn about in school. 'cause in school you learn like you take one. I think I used to think like you take a seed and you get a seed, like that's.

Not kingdom maths because in the kingdom of God you take a seed. So I got up this morning and I had an apple for breakfast and there were seven seeds inside the apple. So it so tiny, you can barely see it. But there's three seeds up here that's an apple seed. You take this seed and you plant it. What do you get?

You get a tree, you get an entire tree. Now that tree, as it grows up, can produce, on average, we're just talking averages. Anywhere between 200 and 500 apples per year. Guess how long an apple tree produces apples? 50 years, sometimes more, right? So this little ti and each of those apples has got another 5, 6, 7, maybe eight seeds in it.

So this tiny little seed here is a forest. Literally just in my lifetime, this is hundreds and thousands of trees in something this small. The cool thing is that Jesus wasn't actually giving a gardening lesson to us all, even that's what I've given you this morning, but he's talking about life. He's talking about love.

He's talking about the kind of more that we have been exploring over the last few weeks in this series. Keep a seed in a jar and it will stay safe. But it will also stay small. Take that seed and release it, and it will multiply when you give your resources, when you give your time, when you give your effort and your energy and your service and your sacrifice.

And you act in a way that reflects the nature and the character of our guide. It is not lost, it multiplies. And the only thing in this kind of economy that you do lose is when you keep it

Jesus words. Here all those years ago, they still echo with truth today. It's a truth that still stands. It's a kingdom principle, and that principle was actually at work in the life of my namesake Ruth in the Bible many years ago. Now, her story is tucked away in. A little book. It's only four chapters long and it's in the old covenant.

And it was set in a time when the judges basically described the era as everyone did what was right in their own eyes. So you can imagine it was pretty chaotic. It was pretty sable unstable. Non stable. Good. I liked maths. But in the midst of this instability, we find the most quiet story of faithful love.

And I think. It's actually one of the most beautiful, clear pictures in the old covenant of how love multiplies when it is released. So just, I'm not gonna read the whole book for you this morning, but I would encourage you to venture back into the Old Covenant because we can learn things from the old Covenant.

We apply what's in the new, but we can learn from Ruth and her story in chapter one. Ruth has every reason in the world to hold onto tight. Hold really tightly to the very few things that she has left. She is a widow. Her mother-in-law is also a widow, so is her sister-in-law. She is a foreigner, a mower bite, and she has literally no safety net left.

They're living in famine conditions, and so her mother-in-law, Naomi, she says, go back home. Go back home. She tells both of her daughters-in-law, head, back home, at least there. You've got family, you've got relatives. It would be the sensible, strategic, smart thing to do. And so Ruth's sister-in-law heads back home, but Ruth responds with this.

These words and they're words that probably most of you are familiar with because they are often recited at weddings. But what I want to say to you this morning is that these are not just poetic words. These are incredibly costly words. Now that you understand where she's coming from, she says this to her mother-in-law.

She says, where you go, I will go and your people will be my people and your God. My God. She basically released everything that made her safe. She released her homeland, she released her relatives. She released her potential future. She lived with an open hand. And so if we're to use Jesus' imagery at this point, you could say she fell.

Like a seed into the ground, not knowing what would grow, not knowing what would come from her decision, but showing incredible kindness to her mother-in-law. And so we read the chapter through, in chapter, the book through in chapter two, she starts gleaning the fields of a man named Boaz. And it was literally survival level work like she was unseen really.

It was very humbling. She was quite invisible. But Boaz notices and Boaz is what was referred to as a kinship redeemer. And so that meant that he was a relative, basically with the legal right to restore a vulnerable family line. And so he steps in, but he doesn't just do what he legally has to do. He didn't do the bare minimum.

He actually. Shows her kindness. He says to his workers, leave extra grain out for her to gather. He protects her dignity. He didn't shrink, did he? By giving more. Not at all. Love grows where it goes, and so when Ruth released what she had. She didn't lose her future. She actually stepped into a greater one and she becomes the great grandma of King David and eventually she's in the lineage of Jesus.

She didn't clinging to the little bit that she had. She surrendered it, and because of that, her love multiplied. The cool thing is that we come across into the New Covenant and we discover that the same invitation is given to each and every one of us in Christ Jesus. Huh? Jesus says Whoever loses, whoever tries to save their life will lose it.

But whoever loses their life for me. We'll find it. When we cling, we shrink. But when we surrender our lives to him, then we step into his story. And his story is one of life and abundance, and we stepped into something incredibly eternal. And this afternoon, as Kev already said, we're gonna actually see this lived out and played out as people head into the waters of bti baptism.

And they're basically declaring as they do that, that I'm not clinging to my life anymore. I am releasing it and going under the water that represents. Death, the seed falling into the ground and then coming up that represents new life, resurrection life, new life multiplied. It's essentially the seed principle in action, letting go of survival and stepping into surrender in the life of Jesus.

So Ruth shows us the principle, but Jesus, he does more than just teach us about the principle. Jesus is the seed. He is the seed. We read that Jesus set his face like Flint and he heads towards Jerusalem and what's waiting in Jerusalem, the cross. But he resolutely sets out there willing and ready to release literally everything.

His rights, his body. His life and in his love for each and every one of us, whether you're in the room or whether you're watching online, he held nothing back. He released it all, and from that surrender comes resurrection. The kind of love and sacrifice and grace that he has for us is astounding. It is absolutely staggering.

How much he loves us. And I love our word for the year. Our word for the year this year is recalibration. And I wonder if a big part of that word for us at an individual level is a recalibration of our hearts, a recalibration back to the first love that we have for him in response to the love that he has for us.

And maybe for you, it's. Not a return back, but an understanding for the first time of the love that Jesus has for each and everyone. And so when we understand that love, I think that we read this next passage in a little different way as well. It's in John 13 and Jesus says, A new commandment I give you, love one another.

As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, by what? This? Not by our programs, not by how much we can accumulate, not by our perfection, by this.

Everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. He ties our credibility as his followers to love

as Jesus has loved us. We must love, it's meant to be the tone of everything that we do. Everything that we say the way that we live, we love as he has loved us. In 2011, many of you will remember the Brisbane floods. The area got decimated, didn't it? What happened after those floods was that thousands of people showed up with shovels and buckets.

Some estimates say that up to 25,000 volunteers assembled. Now I'm not talking about a program. I'm talking about 25,000 people that saw a need that saw their neighbor hurting, and they showed up and they simply asked, what do we need to do? They cleaned stranger's homes. They cleaned public. Spaces. They literally threw on their gumbo and they didn't stand around waiting for direction.

They just went and they did something. They called it what? The Mud Army. There were no uniforms. There were no branding. There was no spotlight. It was just a bunch of ordinary people that saw a need and did something. They generously gave their time, their effort, their energy, their resources. Maybe you were a part of it.

I know I'm looking around. There was a bunch of us that would go up to Ipswich and we were mudding out. I think Phil, I was with you and your gurney. We'd be filling mudding out like houses and businesses. It was incredible. For a moment, love became the posture of an entire community. An entire community and with all of the sweat and with all of the cost to those volunteers I doubt, and I can't say this for sure 'cause I haven't asked all 25,000 of them, but I doubt that any one of those people would have, would say that they lost anything by giving, I actually think it would've been the opposite.

Everything multiplied. The community was strengthened because of what they did, and I look at that picture of a mud army and I see a picture of the kingdom of God. That's what the world can look like when we loosen our grip on what's mine. Mine, and whether it be your resources or your time, or your energy, and you choose to release it, that's the picture.

Now, imagine if that's what community looked like, not just after a disaster. Imagine families. Imagine workplaces. Imagine your homes. Imagine our community and our city absolutely transformed because. Followers of Jesus choose to live this way every single day. Dying to self, picking up a towel and asking, what does love require of me in this situation?

The way of Jesus is not just a emergency compassion, it is everyday availability, and it is everyday surrender. It's asking what does love require, and then living it out. Before the crisis. After the crisis and up every single ordinary day in between. Huh? When you live on mission and you choose to follow Jesus, it doesn't have to look dramatic, but it does mean being deliberate.

It means being spirit led. It means waking up every single day and choosing to uncurl your hand. Choose to live open-handed, open-hearted, and intentionally asking What does love require? What does love require in this conversation? What does love require in this relationship? What does love require in my home?

What does love require in this tension that I'm sitting in? What does love require in the middle of this interruption, perhaps it's not an interruption, but an invitation from God to step in and to impact somebody's life. Love God, and love others. And just to be clear. I am not talking about doing more out of guilt.

I'm not talking about doing anything more out of some attempt to live out your religion. I'm talking about picking up and picking up a towel and serving and loving others because it's out of a response of love that we have for him. We are for our community because our God is for us. God so loved the world.

That's the response, right? God so loved you, and he so loved your family, and he so loved your neighbors and our community and the world that he gave his only son, that whoever would believe in him would not die, but have what? Life. Life here and forevermore. So here's the challenge for all of you, me included.

It's Monday morning, you've woken up. I want you to think about one seed that you could intentionally release this week. I'm not asking you this week to go out and completely change your life. I'm not even asking you to go out and plant a forest. One seed seeds are small, but they are acts of obedience, and so what is it for you?

Maybe it's a seed of forgiveness. Maybe there's been something that you've been playing and rehearsing over and over in your mind and the Holy Spirit is prompting you to say. Instead of rehearsing that hurt. How about you pray blessing on that person? How about you send that text saying that I don't like this distance between us.

And I'm not saying that forgiveness, forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting that the thing never happened. It's simply means that you choose to release its hold on you. Maybe it's a seed of generosity. Maybe it is. I said this whole talk wasn't about finances, but maybe for you it is. Maybe you've been holding onto something and you've been feeling a nudge to give or to pay it forward or to do something.

Maybe that's your seed. Maybe it's generosity with serving. I was watching Megs and Anita this week trying to find volunteers for one of the most vital spaces in our community. You know what that is? Kids, there are people who release, who invest, who sow their time week after week so that a young generation would know about Jesus and be discipled in his ways.

I cannot think of a higher calling to be honest. Maybe Jesus, maybe the Holy Spirit will just, speak to you about that, because that's not just service. That's eternal multiplication. That's what that is. Maybe it's just the seat of presence, putting your phone down and being present with your kids,

setting the table, extending an invitation for someone to come and join you. Maybe it's encouragement. Maybe like me. You are, you think a good thing about someone and it stops there. Maybe for you this seed would be to tell that good thing to pour courage into the person that you observed something in or maybe in your home.

It would be to stop speaking critical words and instead choose to speak words of honor to your husband or your wife or your kids. What one seed will you intentionally release this week? What does love require? A new commandment. I give you love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another.

By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples. If you love one another. Our community will know that we are his disciples by our love. So don't be a chipmunk this week or next. Understand that in the natural world, instinct is to hold on, but we are not part of the natural world. We're part of an upside down kingdom.

What you keep will shrink, but what you give. Multiplies and grows. So release one thing this week and watch what God does with it.