You probably can't see what I have between my fingers.  It's a seed, a grain of oats.  So small - and you can't know what it will become.  When planted and fed with fertilizer and especially with water, it would multiply into this: a handful of 60-80 grains from one seed, 60-80 grains ready to provide nourishment or for more planting!  But without planting and especially without watering, this single seed will just sit there.  It will never be anything more than just a single seed.

          With planting, it could become horse food or bird food or people food - oatmeal, Cheerios, oat bran, or oat bread.  Only God knows right now what will become of this little seed.  But it must be planted to see what it will become.

          Six years ago a small number of families planted a seed here in northern Douglas County - it was the seed of salvation, specifically, the seed of God's Word about Jesus, and they organized this congregation: Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church of Castle Rock.  They did not know what it would become.  Yet they fed and watered that small congregation with the Word of God, especially the Water of Life, the Gospel of Christ Jesus, which is God's power to save the world.  And see what His seed has done!  It has produced a crop!

          Today six years later that small original group of 14 people has become this congregation of 400+, which includes us now and as well as all who will be reached by the seed of the Gospel in the years God grants Epiphany Church.  Yet, when the seed is planted, only God knows what it will become.

          Over 2000 years ago the real “Seed” of salvation was planted onto this earth.  Jesus was "planted" by the Holy Spirit into the womb of the Virgin Mary.  And Mary did not know what He would become.  And even at His special birth, she still did not know, for she wondered and pondered all this in her heart.  But she did her part to help that "Seed" grow: she bore Him and nursed Him and taught and prayed for Him - which was all she could do.  The eternal seed of the Word came to earth and it grew.

          Yet Jesus of Nazareth, the Word of God incarnate, needed spiritual food to grow into the salvation harvest.  And so He studied God's Word so He could use it when tempted by the devil and others.  The Son of the Most High God studied and worshipped and heard that Word.  He also prayed and was fed, especially in the Garden of Gethsemane for strength to help Him in the struggle facing Him, to suffer for the sins of the world, including yours and mine.  And God the Father and God the Holy Spirit were with Him so that the Seed of Salvation produced the harvest of salvation.

          And see what that Seed has done!  All people who have lived in all of time could have been saved through Jesus Christ, the eternal Seed of Salvation!  And still today all who have faith in this Seed, everyone who believes, has that salvation.  All those before Him who looked forward to His suffering as sacrifice, and all people since, including us, who look back and trust Him, are beneficiaries of eternal life.  He suffered and died for you and me.  He had to if we sinners were to live forever!  He had to, and He did!  Yet, when He was "planted" in Mary's womb, no one knew what he would become: only God did.

          In a worship service it is always fitting to remember what God has done – yet not without tools.  His real tool and power, of course, is the “Seed” itself, the preaching of the "Seed" Who lived and suffered and died and rose again.  Thus, with the Seed and soil and water, there will be a crop that will benefit many others with life and strength.

          But His finest tool, the Gospel, needs other "tools" in order for it to be sown and planted into the ears and minds and hearts of people, just like the oat seed needs a living person to put it into the ground if it is to produce a harvest.  You and I are His tools.  You and I are the ones to plant the seed.

          The Virgin Mary was a living tool to do her part for the Eternal "Seed" to grow, so the Lord has always used people to sow His Gospel message "seed."  And you and I here today are tools for planting the seed.  The task of planting is not reserved just for full-time church workers, but for all Christians, all who know Christ as Savior and Lord.  All Christians are all His tools to plant the seed.

          In 1992, a Los Angeles County parking control officer came upon a new Cadillac illegally parked next to the curb on street-sweeping day.  The officer dutifully wrote out a ticket.  Ignoring the man seated at the driver's wheel, the officer reached inside the open car window and placed the $30 citation on the dashboard.  The driver of the car made no excuses. No argument ensued, and with good reason.  The driver of the car was dead!  He’d had a heart attack but was sitting up, stiff as a board.  The officer, preoccupied with ticket-writing, was unaware of anything out of the ordinary.  He got back in his patrol car and drove away.  Similarly, millions of people around us are dead in their transgressions and sins.  And without Christ, so are we!  It's not our sins and offenses that are important - it's what we need.  We don't need a citation; we need a Savior.

          We need a Savior because not all seed is good.  Today in the world, bad seeds are being sown in many places.  The seed of Islamic extremism has raised up a harvest of hatred and death.  The seed of greed has raised up a harvest of godless secular humanism.  The seed of false doctrine in the church has raised up a harvest of false hopes.  All around us people are bent on embracing the evils God deplores.  When bad seed is planted, the harvest is destruction.

          When people believe that bad seed is good, they can no longer judge between right and wrong, and the result is chaos.  And whenever good people stand by and let evil seed be planted, it brings us one step closer to the Great Tribulation spoken of in Revelation.

          In His parable of the Sower, Jesus told of seed falling on the path where the birds came and ate it.  Jesus said these are the people who hear the Word, but Satan comes and grabs it away, and they never really believe it.  Some seed fell on rocky soil, where it grew up quickly, but died for lack of water.  These are people who hear the Word with joy, but don’t follow up with worship and prayer and study, and so they fall away from faith quickly.  Other seed fell among thorns which used up the nutrients and water and grew up puny and weak.  These are people who hear the Word, but the worries and cares and wealth of life choke the life out of their faith, barely allowing it to remain alive.

          Every time we planted corn in one our fields back in Minnesota, when I was growing up, we would swing the planter around at one end of the field, and invariably, some seed would spill out into the grassy bank along fence by the end rows.  Some of that seed would take root and start to grow, but it never produced an ear of corn.  It always was competing for the soil's nutrients with the grass, weeds and other plants along the fence line.  Those stray corn seeds never grew tall, and they eventually died out.  That's the soil described here-full of weeds!

          But the seeds that fell on good soil are those who hear the Gospel and believe it.  They receive it in their hearts, and it grows to be a great harvest to the benefit of others.  Seed does not exist for itself; it exists to benefit others.  So also it is with us.  We do not exist only for ourselves; we are here to benefit others.

          You and I do not know what will become of this church or even this world.  We do know the world will not last forever, and so we must make the best use of the time given us.  It's a deadly trap to think life is meant only for enjoyment of the present.  True, God wants us to make the best of each day, but that should also include doing something for the good of others.  The Seed of the Gospel is there to feed people and to make a great harvest for heaven.  You are I are here on earth to feed others with the Seed of the Word of God.

          From 1927-1941, a sculptor named Gutzon Borglum carved the massive figures of the four American presidents on Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota -- Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.  One day he was asked how he produced that amazing work.  He replied simply, "Those figures were there for forty million years.  All I had to do was dynamite 400,000 tons of granite off to bring them into view."

          Matthew chapter 13 may look simple, but its seven parables are profound.  I am going to speak on two more of those parables in the coming two Sundays, for they will reveal to us a wealth of information about the Kingdom of God.

          Remember - you and I and this church will not last forever.  Eternity will come more quickly than we think.  Be ready for it by trusting in Jesus Christ, the true "Seed."  God grant us all grace to be part of His great harvest.  Amen

(Thanks to Rev. Ted Allwardt for his analogy of the Seed of God's Word in this message)
 
Copyright © 2005 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.