Forcing Growth vs. Waiting on Growth

July 12, 2010 by russ
Filed under Action Packed Jesus, Announcements, Inspiration, Sermons

In our “Action-Packed Jesus: A Walk Through the Book of Mark” sermon series we will be looking at the parable of the seed in Mark 4:26-29. One of the points of the message has caused me to think through what it means to force growth versus waiting on God to provide the growth.First, let me give us the text and a key to understanding this parable:

Mark 4:26-29:
And He was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; 27 and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows — how, he himself does not know. 28 “The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. 29 “But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” NASU

1. The man who casts the seed– believers who are faithfully sharing the Gospel.
2. The seed– The Gospel (The Word of God)
3. The soil (earth)– The recipient of the Gospel
4. The life giver– God
5. The reaper of the harvest– Believers who reap the harvest for the glory of God.

As we can see from this key, the one who sows does not give life. The seed contains all of the life giving elements and only God is the One who can give the seed life. The sower cannot give life, the earth cannot give life. They are only passive elements which God graciously allows and invites to be a part of His saving work.

Too often, the problem I run into is trying to force growth and give life to people that I cannot give life to. When I do this I am trying to operate outside of the bounds that God has given me to operate. For one thing, I am not able to give life. As much as I want to, I am not the one who has that ability and prerogative, only God has that. The second problem with trying to play God’s role is that I am functionally saying that I do not trust Him to do His role.

In evangelism (sowing seeds), we should sow seeds from the standpoint of knowing that God is going to save sinners, not all but some. Remember the parable of the soils, some soil is good soil but others are not. John 10:16 gives us reason to be confident that He will save sinners in the fact that Jesus teaches us that “there are other sheep and they will hear the voice of their shepherd.” When you share your faith, there will be people who hear and who heed the voice of their shepherd. My life verse is I Tim. 4:16 which says, “Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.” Again, our job is to be faithful and if we do, God will grant the salvation.

Practically, we must grow in trust for God. We must sow seeds of the Gospel and trust Him to give life. Many of us don’t share our faith like we should because we don’t trust as we should. In trusting, there comes the ability to have patience and wait on God. The great pastor-theologian Charles Spurgeon once wrote about this parable and our impatience through this story– “According to this parable we may expect to see fruit. But we may not expect to see all the seed which we sow spring up the moment we sow it. We are also to expect to see the good seed grow, but not always after our fashion. Like children we are apt to be impatient. Your little boy sowed mustard and cress yesterday in his garden. This afternoon Johnny will be turning over the ground to see if the seed is growing. There is no probability that his mustard and cress will come to anything, for he will not let it alone long enough for it to grow. So is it with hasty workers; they must see the result of the gospel directly, or else they distrust the blessed Word.” Let this be a challenge to us to trust God and trust the Word to produce the result that God desires.

One of the areas of evangelism that we as parents tend to have a hard time with is waiting for the salvation of our children. This is an area that has been challenging to me, as my oldest of 3 children is only 6years old. In the desire to see our children saved, which is a great desire, I believe we can tend to be impatient when waiting for the Lord to give them salvation and we try to force something that we can’t force, namely salvation. I can’t even begin to count how many children I have seen baptized at a young age, only to see them baptized later in life and unfortunately some who give the appearance later on of never having experienced true saving faith to begin with. Much of this may have been avoided had the parent been patient in allowing the child to be baptized. While I do think that young children are able to be saved, I think a parent and pastor should take each child on a case by case basis and be willing not to rush baptism. This helps to serve several functions:
1. It serves the child well. Many children will often, when they determine that they were not truly saved as a young child, have lots of confusion as to what purpose their earlier baptism served and will not know whether or not to be baptized again. Some even feel scared and ashamed to tell their parents. I, personally, fell into this boat as I was baptized the first time before real saving faith. This confusion can be avoided if we would not force the child by coersion and good intentions into praying a prayer of faith and then rushing them into the baptismal waters.
2. It serves the church well. Personally, I do not think that we should allow into the membership of the local church someone who we are not willing to discipline. Many churches do not know how to respond when a young child professes faith and are accepted into membership through baptism and then later fall away. While we must remember that foolishness is built up in the heart of a child according to Proverbs 22:15, we must also not neglect administering the rod of discipline according to the rest of the verse. In the context of the church we must discipline our children and the rod we must use is love and a non-tolerance for sin. After all, we desire that the child be saved and so we must help them, as well as all of the members of the body to not have a tolerance for sin. If the church allows sin, especially willful sin, even that of a child, to go unaccounted for it says to the church that we don’t take sin and repentance seriously. If we would not rush the baptism of young children, with rush being the key word, I believe we will be in a better position to serve the child and serve the church.
3. It demonstrates a trust in God to give true faith and repentance. In other words, if the parent could be like the sower who rests at night trusting that life will be given there is great peace. Of all people, I know what if feels like to be impatient in desiring to see those who you love the most be saved, yet I have to trust that God knows best and will give life when He desires. This gives me the freedom to wait on God and not force growth. It gives me the ability to have rest and not be frantic.

In Conclusion as our job is to sow we must remember that we can’t neglect performing that great job and then watching for life. We should not plant seeds and turn a blind eye. Because we know that God is good and that He gives life, we should look for signs of life. When we see the blade coming up we want to be God’s agents of protecting, nurturing, and giving that plant everything we can to help it mature. Although we know that God is the one who will see a good thing through to completion, He invites us to be a part of that process. When we see signs of life in our children we must protect that small sprout of faith, we must give them the word of God as part of their regular diet. We must shoot predators that would come to take away their faith. If we will be faithful, God will be faithful. My concluding words are to trust God, be faithful, wait on growth and don’t force it and we will look forward to the day when God will allow us to reap a great harvest for His glory!

In Christ,
Russ Robinson
I Tim. 4:16

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