The Missing Ingredient in Sowing and Reaping: A Grateful Heart

Sermon outline

Sowing and reaping is God's law, but its missing ingredient is a grateful heart: remember where God brought you from, celebrate other people's success and thank Him for everything, and the blessing will keep increasing.

1. Sowing and reaping has a missing ingredient

   Whatever you sow you reap, thirty, sixty and a hundredfold, and the measure you give is measured back to you. God asks for one tenth, set aside as He has blessed you each week, so that the nine tenths are blessed. But too many people have lost a grateful heart: God elevated them and now they take it for granted.

   Illustration: When you bake a cake and leave out one ingredient, it flops or doesn't taste right, and only afterwards do you realise something was missing.

   “I said there's a missing ingredient in sowing and reaping.”

   • Galatians 6:7
   • Mark 4:20
   • Luke 6:38
   • 1 Corinthians 16:2

2. Not everybody can handle prosperity

   We argue about what we will eat while some families go to bed without a meal, and we forget that we once took public transport and now drive our own cars. When prosperity gets into your head you become high-minded and drunk with your own success.

   Illustration: King Nebuchadnezzar thought he was so great that God put His hand on him; for seven years he lived like an animal in the bush, unrecognisable, going from everything to nothing.

   “When prosperity gets into your head, you become high-minded.”

   • Daniel 4:28-33

3. Celebrate other people's success

   Don't look down on people who don't have yet or who are up and coming, because one day they may overtake you. When you celebrate other people's success, success comes to you.

   Illustration: Years ago he hid his old car, full of holes and needing a kick-start, right at the back of the church car park. Yet the Lord told him to go with his pastor whenever he prayed over someone's brand-new Mercedes or BMW, hold the oil bottle, lay hands on the car and thank God for blessing them, because it gave him hope that one day he would drive such cars too.

   “When you celebrate other people's success, automatically success comes to you.”

4. Remember where God brought you from

   He once had one pair of jeans and one T-shirt, washed and worn again and again until the colour ran, and one pair of shoes held together with Bostik; now he lays out his shoes to choose which to wear. You are not where you are because of your education, degree, background or contacts, but by the grace of God.

   Illustration: In an old VW with a rusted-through floor, he told Pastor Zubeda to keep her feet to the far left and right so they wouldn't go through, and once a fender flew off and he had to put it in the boot. 'We ain't fixing fenders anymore,' he says, not out of pride but because God has blessed them.

   “I am what I am, but by the grace of God.”

   • 1 Corinthians 15:10

5. Be grateful like the woman with the alabaster box

   Just before the crucifixion a woman broke an alabaster box of expensive perfume over Jesus; she didn't keep the expensive one and use the cheap one. Judas called it a waste that could have been sold for the poor, but he wanted the money for himself because he kept the bag. Those who take God's blessing for granted risk losing what they once had.

   “She was grateful.”

   • Matthew 26:6-13
   • John 12:3-6

6. Promise God you will always be grateful

   Whether you have little or much, be grateful, and on your way home thank God for the car you drive and kneel at home to thank Him. He has the church kneel where they can and thanks God for lifting people in the church, for miracle after miracle, and for keeping them through the pandemic when thousands died. For those in crisis, the season will change, because God lifts up one and puts down another.

   Illustration: Builders would have called for a bulldozer or a crane to bring down Jericho's walls, but God had Israel march and shout. Driving fast to church that morning, he told his worried wife that, like Jesus in the boat, they were going to the other side.

   “Be grateful for the little, so that you will get the much. Be grateful for the much, so that you will get the more.”

   • Psalm 75:7
   • Joshua 6:15-20
   • Mark 4:35

7. A time of prophecy over the church

   Led by the Spirit and unplanned, he calls couples and families forward and prophesies over them: God will bless them beyond what they imagine, their season is changing, the blessing will overtake them, and God looks at the heart, as when Samuel passed over Jesse's sons and anointed young David. He prophesies debt cancellation, increase, promotions and fruitful wombs, and tells everyone that the words spoken over others are for them too. He says a church must have a programme but be flexible enough to move with God.

   Illustration: When summer comes after winter, the first thing you do is change your clothes; he tells the people before him to get ready to change their clothes, because their season is changing.

   “The same words I'm giving them is the same words I'm giving you.”

   • Jeremiah 1:5
   • Esther 4:14
   • 1 Kings 18:41
   • 1 Samuel 16:6-13