The Patient Farmer by Duane Troyer

i want to read a short parable this morning out of the book of mark if you want to turn there it's in mark 4. chapter or verse 26 of mark 4 he says this is jesus speaking he says and he was saying the kingdom of god is like a man who casts seed upon the soil and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day and the seed sprouts and grows how he himself does not know the soil produces crops by itself first the blade then the head then the mature grain in the head but when the crop permits he immediately puts in the sickle because the harvest has come there's just a real short little parable that i've i've puzzled over quite a bit it's it's not found in any of the other gospels and so don't have that privilege of of hearing another one that is similar yet maybe describes it just a little different sometimes that helps get get what jesus means in his parables he's likening the kingdom of god to a farmer and there's there's some things that a farmer knows and there's a lot of things that a farmer doesn't know uh the farmer knows that he wants a harvest um of course what's what's a farmer without a harvest that's how he feeds his household it's how he makes his income and and the farmer knows that in order to get a harvest uh he must put seed into the ground so he he knows those things but the farmer can't make the seed the farmer can't cause it to grow it grows in a manner that he doesn't understand [Music] the combination of the the warmth of the sun the moisture of the rain the nutrients of the soil those things together can take this this this completely dormant seed a seed that has died and and can can make it produce a plant that has life [Music] uh as as this this this seed sprouts and and pushes roots downward and grows a stem upward first the blade and then the head and then the mature grain of the head it it it captures energy from the sun that the farmer can't see it captures nutrients from the soil that the farmer can't see and and converts it into a visible plant and then into a visible grain of head uh head of grain um uh and he he doesn't know how this happens he doesn't understand even how this happens much less can he make it happen so so day after night and night after day he goes to bed he gets up he goes to bed he gets up and from day to day he can barely even see that anything happened oh oh and and uh he you know but but but he just he just patiently waits and waits and waits and waits until finally the the grain in this in this head is mature and he gets down the sickle and he thrusts in the sickle and he harvests and as he fills his garner with grain there's some things that he knew and knows and understands and there is a lot that he doesn't uh he knew that sowing seed would set into motion a spontaneous process that would lead to harvest and he knew that he wanted to harvest um but but how that bag of seed turned into a bin of grain he doesn't know now jesus is lightening this to the kingdom of god and i i've puzzled over this this parable wondering wondering if jesus is referring to to the man casting seed like jesus gave other parables of a sower and a seed and of of wheat and tares and in a lot of these parables his his sower is is is the son of god or the lord himself uh putting casting seed and and where the soil right and and on what soil this seed falls depends on how it produces but and so i've wondered is he saying the same thing again um there's a part is is is god this farmer and there's a part that he does there's a part that he doesn't do um and he wants a harvest and once once the time is right once once once uh the maturity that he's looking for is there he'll he'll put in the sickle and he'll harvest um maybe it jesus is even referred to as seed this this could be a parable of of jesus the seed coming down to earth uh which which set into motion something that will then result in the in the fullness of the kingdom of god um it could be that [Music] um the the part about the farmer not really knowing how things work maybe doesn't quite fit in so well i i don't think there's too many things that god doesn't understand how it works um or is this parable different is this parable talking about the farmer being us uh are we the one casting seed and the more i the more i wondered about it the more i thought well what difference does it make isn't isn't the whole purpose of of revealing god's character and his nature for us to be like that aren't are isn't the purpose that we read the scriptures and that we pray and that we come came together today isn't isn't the whole purpose be the whole purpose behind us being a christian is it not to be like him and if we can get something out of scriptures that that reveal god's nature and god's character then then it's for us too we want to be like that uh and and i think i think that the main purpose in this parable is god wanting us or or expressing for himself and wanting us to have the right attitude toward the kingdom and toward the harvest and that is patience it'll come in god's time and we are in need of patience paul says that after we have done the will of god we might receive the promise see we we can do the will of god but we wait for the promise just like the farmer sows the seed and then he waits and waits and waits for the harvest um and this is important patience is not this careless kicking back doing nothing as we just let time fly by that's not what patience means patience is is endurance patience is long suffering patience is hanging in there the farmer doesn't just sleep from spring till fall not at all he cultivates he irrigates he he perspirates he does he does what is in his power to do till the harvest comes as as limited as that might be as limited as as as what is in his power to to do might be he still does what he can do he does what's in his power to do as he anticipates and waits and and does what it takes to get that harvest paul says patience works experience and experience hope and hope makes not ashamed i want you to think about that for a little bit patience um if if we have patience we can have hope and and if we have hope we can be patient right if we uh if we lose our patience it means we've lost our hope if we lose our hope we lose our patience these these things really go together um we we we are in need of this patience and patience ends up producing hope and because of hope we can just hang in there just a little longer right recently i read a very interesting thing i thought it was very interesting it said during a study at harvard in the 1950s dr kurt richard richer he did an experiment with rats he took he took domesticated rats and wild rats and they were the same breed of rats but but but some of them were domesticated some of them were wild and he put them in water to see how long they could swim until until they die and drown um and whether he should have done that or not that's beside the point this this was done and here's here's the results of this experiment is that the domesticated rats could swim for 40 to 60 hours before they couldn't make it any longer and drowned the wild rats swam for 15 minutes they gave up and died now here's the really striking part when the wild rat just at 15 minutes or just before it just gave up out of exhaustion and died if they took it out of the water held it for a little while and petted it dry and patted it dry and put it back into the water it could swim for 40 to 60 hours whenever there's a little bit of hope you can hang in there right when there's a hope that this might end that there might be an end to this we can endure we can persist we can persevere we need patience we need patience like god has patience think think about god's patience we see it all through scripture his his patience his endurance with people who who just continue to not to not get it we need patients with our spouse we need patients with our children we need patients with our brethren and if we want if we want that genuine fruit that mature fruit we're going to have to be patient we are we are limited in our ability to to just make that happen there's some things we can do but there's just a lot that we can't do to produce the real genuine fruit the real genuine mature grain uh head of grain um you know many many times people people know what's wrong we we know what's wrong with our spouse sometimes we know what's wrong with our with our teenagers uh we know what's wrong with our brethren it's it's evident it's evident in their clothes it's evident in their cars it's evident in their bookshelves it's evident in all the things the all the ways they express um whatever a worldliness a rebellion we know it we can see it and it's it's pretty common for people and for churches to take to to just decide to take action and decide we're gonna fix this we're gonna fix these bad results and we're gonna through through through force or some ungodly manipulation or or bribery or whatever we're gonna change this outside form and we're gonna make this person into something that he's not and it doesn't produce the real thing that we want it produces a synthetic fruit and there's all kinds of ways to make synthetic fruit we can have we can just have one man just just make decisions call the shots we can have every man lean on his own understanding we can vote we can take majority rules we can take all these things but god is wanting us to patiently bear with each other of course there's some things not not permissible of course there's some things not tolerable that's why that's why paul says as much as possible live peaceably with all men he knows that it's not always possible uh but still that's that's god that's the way god's nature is that's the way he waits with us and we ought to be the same way um recently i read that the the national geographic does not sponsor a trek or a journey if if the people going on this trek or journey if there's an even number of people they won't sponsor it why because what if what if there's two people there's got to be three five seven nine whatever what what if two people uh are are doing some kind of a trick and they they become they come to disagreement on how to cross this mountain um and it can't be resolved because they're of two different opinions they need that third person um to to for the odd man to yield right it's probably why the supreme court needs an odd amount of people on it um because because that's how they vote that's how they resolve things but the interesting thing is how did jesus send out people two by two see jesus is looking for something different he's not just looking for movement he's not just looking for uh some people mistake movement for progress and and and sometimes the real thing that that that god is wanting us to learn is something other than just getting across the mountain he's also wanting us to learn to bear and to be patient and to hang in there and to suffer long sometimes the genuine progress the real true progress looks more like that plant that grows day after night after day after night very slowly but it's the genuine thing and what we really need to get that fruit is patience um there's just there's there's some laws of sowing and reaping that we can never get out of we will so we will reap what we sow we will reap later than we sow and we will reap more than we sow let me just close with with reading a few verses in james verses 7 to 11. therefore be patient brethren until the coming of the lord the farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil being patient about it until it gets the early and the late reigns you too be patient strengthen your hearts for the coming of the lord is near do not complain brethren against one another so that you yourselves may not be judged behold the judge is standing right at the door as an example brethren of suffering and patience take the prophets who spoke in the name of the lord we count those blessed who endured you have heard of the endurance of job and have seen the outcome of the lord's dealings that the lord is full of compassion and is merciful the lord had his blessing open it up for comments or corrections if you have any you may have already read this but i um i got i got here a little late but this um oh i might i got my little girl right here patient continuant so it's a it's a it's a precious um concept to me um i'm just going to read in romans 2 god who will render to every man according to his deeds to them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality eternal life but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil and i like it's like the contrast uh that that's the opposite of patient of patiently continuing is um is being content being contentious and not obeying the truth and obeying unrighteousness and then i just thought brett knows retinol is greek but i i just this might not be the best but i just click when i click on that it's just one word patient continuance there something like that it says steadfastness constancy endurance in the new testament the characteristic of a man who has not swerved from his deliberate purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and sufferings and then um down at the bottom i like it says um it says cheerful or hopeful endurance i don't want to sound like a broken record but i probably will um i i've i've made mention of that um testimony about the boat the endurance has anybody actually read that shackleton and the endurance they went to um they sell to the antarctic they were gonna be like the first guys to make to the antarctic and the the boat was named endurance it's i mean it's i think it's in the national geographic but um two but it's just an amazing story um i would encourage you all to maybe look into it but something that you shared about the hope so that so this boat the endurance it tried to break some record and make it to the antarctic and it got frozen in the ice and um they were stuck in the ice for two years and it's just this amazing story of just enduring but one of the things that the captain did is he realized that in order for them to survive their morale had to be high they couldn't lose hope if they lost hope they were gonna it was gonna be that was gonna be the end of them so they would have like community haircuts and they would put on plays for each other and they would just try to really stay motivated and and um there's all these like things that took place in this story that are that are really amazing this this guy shackleton he really knew how to be a leader but um they had eventually just make a long story short they had they had sailed the boat to an island they were like halfway to being rescued but but the waters were so dangerous that they couldn't all go so just the toughest of the toughest guys got in this boat and they just it took like this shot in the dark to to survive but the guys that stayed back the one guy would tell um he would say every morning to the guys that stay back he'd say pack up your gear today the boss is coming and every day they'd pack up their gear and in hopes that he was going to return to save them you know the little boat that went to get help and it had been a while but finally one day you know they had every day they had packed up their gear waiting for the boss but then one day they packed up their gear and the boss actually came and it's an amazing story though this what these guys endured and how they kept their hopes up and i mean it's a worldly story it's a worldly testimony but you can just easily switch it over to being christians but anyways i really appreciated that thank you hey brother doania thank you so much that was that was a really good message yeah i was just sitting there thinking uh remembering um in years past when i went through this writing that tertullian did where it's basically on patience and how he makes the connection which i never did before to temperance or self-control and i just think he does a really amazing job making that connection and then seeing that connection to the suppression of the flesh they're taking up the cross daily it's all connected this idea of patience and because it's only through that that we can walk with the spirit which leads into the kingdom so i just had to share that but yeah thank you brother uh maybe just a question for you dwayne the rat study is it because the domesticated rats were like they felt loved and like like did it say in the study i just had to make it guess like i would have thought that the domesticated rats had some [Music] that's what i would've thought like a wild animal is often more hearty and tall and used to danger and all that but [Music] the whole the whole study the point of the study was that the amount of endurance we have is the cycle of things that would take like yeah i think he'd be like maybe even if well rat knew he could swim longer like why bother yeah he's figured out this is a hopeless situation you know when they pulled him out they taught him like there's hope sometimes people pulled it out of the water oh maybe if that'll happen again yeah i it's encouraging to me as well i thank you for it and amen i even got a different thought about the rats but i think the wild rat was more aggressive and he was she just tired himself out immediately he's gonna drown and when he got the relaxation he was put back in he relaxed that's my idea about that i don't think this cycle actually figured that out but humans would do that but i don't think rats will i think that the common rats they just they just floated around and they they took it easy this is why when you get caught in water if you if you panic you're gonna die in 15 minutes using that same story or if you relax and go along with it you can make it a lot longer and i think it had to do with panic but anyways that's interesting story whatever the reason i'm not i'm not either neither am i persuaded that rats have hope maybe they do but it's uh but i agree with the fact in humans it's it's that way when we have hope we can another thought ahead about about that whole abyss isn't it not often that god tests us to our limits it's it's not really a test until he tests us to our limits and and how often is it when we surrender or we um at the time we think it's the end and then god i'm not sure i'm saying the right thing here but it's it's just we have he has to take us to our two limits because to be a good test and i'm not sure how that comes with the hope it kind of conf confused me just a little bit on that of some future thought of past thoughts i had anyway so it was encouraging god bless us appreciated what you shared i'll just share my thoughts about the rats when you started talking about the experiment my first guess was that the domesticated rats survived longer um i don't know if this the way i thought about it in my mind as you were saying was that these domesticated rats had a um believed in uh in a higher power or they were they were used to being um to being taken care of by someone else they didn't they didn't live and die uh by themselves the way the wild rats would have and uh i just thought that would be the reason why maybe one of the reasons why why they'd have had not been whatever you want to call it you know why they would have had hope or or at least uh continued swimming longer um but uh that was my thoughts [Music] [Music] to make this request [Music] upon us [Music] [Music] the [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] but we [Music] for this place [Music] upon us [Music] [Music] sometimes [Music] [Music] with tears on my face [Music] open the windows [Music] [Applause] upon us [Music] [Music] your powers so strong [Music] [Music] 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Channel: SermonIndex.net

Views: 251

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Revival, Character Of God, Free Sermons, Video Sermons, Jesus Christ, What Is The Gospel, SermonIndex, What Is The Truth, Duane Troyer

Id: 2Vno033cIoM

Length: 43min 58sec (2638 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021