Your Seed Is Always Your Bridge Out of Trouble

Sermon outline

God is your source and seedtime and harvest is His law, so conquer greed, honour the tithe, give yourself away and sow with a named, expected harvest to break the financial curse and pull your future towards you.

1. Don't forget your source

   Faith works by love, and to give generously is to acknowledge that God is your source. A grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die to bear much fruit; when we die to the selfish nature, we bear much fruit.

   “Please write that down if you're taking notes: God is your source.”

   • Galatians 5:6
   • John 12:24
   • Hebrews 11:6

2. Establish a rhythm in your sowing and reaping

   Life is an endless cycle of sowing and reaping, like the seasons. Do not be erratic: create a personal schedule for sowing into God's work so that giving becomes second nature and your harvest comes with rhythm and consistency.

   “Let giving become your lifestyle.”

   • Genesis 8:22

3. Conquer greed

   Satan steals, man hoards and God gives; when we give we take on God's nature. Greed is a spirit that rich and poor alike can carry, and the only way to conquer it is to give. Sow before you get into trouble, so that when trouble comes you can trouble your trouble.

   “Your seed is the only proof that you have conquered greed.”

   • Acts 20:35

4. Start giving your way out of trouble

   What took him out of debt and out of his limits was sowing, after the day he became angry, almost with righteous indignation, about living from paycheck to paycheck. The widow of Zarephath sowed in a famine and Joseph used his gift to rise from prison to palace: what God has put in your hand is always enough to get you out of trouble.

   Illustration: His own anger at living paycheck to paycheck became the turning point when God showed him how to sow.

   “Your seed is always your bridge out of trouble.”

   • 1 Kings 17:12-16
   • Genesis 41:14-41
   • 2 Corinthians 9:10
   • 1 Timothy 4:14

5. Honour the tithe

   Tithing is returning ten per cent of your income to God. Abraham tithed, and Jesus noted that even the Pharisees tithed. The tithe is holy unto the Lord, and leaders who handle the church's money must understand that. Make God your financial partner and make payday a seed-sowing day.

   “Make payday a seed-sowing day.”

   • Genesis 14:20
   • Matthew 23:23
   • Leviticus 27:30-32

6. Respect the law of sowing and reaping

   Seedtime and harvest is as fixed as gravity, which nobody tests by jumping off a high-rise. A farmer who plants corn reaps corn; sow discord and you reap discord, sow love and you reap love.

   Illustration: Nobody jumps off a high-rise building to test whether gravity works.

   “Fools deny it, rebels defy it, the wise live by it.”

   • Galatians 6:7

7. Give yourself away

   You are a collection of parts, and when you sow part of yourself back into God's work you activate the law of increase. Sow extra time into your family and into the work of God, and sow diligence into your job. You cannot expect love, kindness and respect if you will not sow them into others.

   Illustration: In church work he had to make himself a servant, sometimes to the point of feeling demeaned; the honour and respect people now show him came from years of sowing, giving, respect and honour.

   “It was years of sowing.”

   • 1 Peter 5:6

8. Unlock your future

   Seed faith is exchanging what you have been given for what God has promised you. Specify your harvest; whatever the devil has stolen, God will restore, as He did for Job. When you hold back you impoverish yourself, but generosity pulls your future towards you, and he found that when he became a liberal sower his revelation of the Word expanded.

   Illustration: After he became a generous giver, scriptures he had struggled to understand opened up and he began to connect the dots.

   “Seed faith pulls your future towards you.”

   • Job 42:10
   • Luke 6:38

9. Name your seed

   Everyone has something to sow: a smile, a word of encouragement, time, information or money. Whatever you sow, tell God what you want back.

   “Your seed is anything that will benefit another person.”

   • 1 Peter 4:10

10. Get excited about your hundredfold return

    He goes for the hundredfold, not thirtyfold or sixtyfold, and speaks it over the church. Jesus always promised a reward for obedience, and the hundredfold return is your Father's opportunity to celebrate your faith, just as parents swell with pride when their children do well.

    Illustration: A parent watching a grown son or daughter do well and saying 'wow, that's my boy'.

    “God is not against your increase. He's for your increase.”

    • Mark 4:20

11. Ask for a specific harvest

    Your seed is whatever you give to God; your harvest is whatever God gives to you. Name the miracle you want, obey the Holy Spirit when He moves you to give, and when someone blesses you, receive it, because receiving releases miracles for the giver too.

    “Name the particular miracle that you want from God.”

12. Recognise your harvest and your seed

    Your harvest is any person or thing that can bless you: information, favour, finances, an explosive idea. Favour brings a hundredfold and a thousandfold harvest, and a liberal man or woman enjoys success. Your seed is any gift, skill or talent God has given you to sow into others; do not hide it, because it carves the road to your future.

    Illustration: Joseph wanted others to recognise his ability to interpret dreams.

    “A man's gift maketh room for him and bringeth him before great men.”

    • Proverbs 18:16

13. Accept the seed that God has sown

    God had a Son but wanted a family, so He planted His Son at Calvary and lost what He loved for a season. Anything that leaves your hand does not leave your life; it goes into your future and multiplies. Jesus is the seed within you that reproduces God's nature, and He became poor so that you might be rich. Wealth is not taboo; it is the blessing of the Lord.

    “God had a son, but God wanted a family, so he sowed his son to gain a family.”

    • 2 Corinthians 8:9

14. Become someone's harvest

    What you are reproduces around you, as apples produce apples and a giver produces givers. What looks like a loss today proves a gain tomorrow. You are a walking warehouse of seed: sow yourself into someone else.

    “You are somebody's harvest today. Find them.”

15. Always pay your vows

    Honour your promises to the Lord and your word to your family and in business, because God is a covenant God who weighs every vow. Re-examine your past vows and pay them; it positions you for a reward.

    “It doesn't steal from you. It gives back to you.”

16. Break the financial curse

    God is waiting for you to break it, and it starts with the seed, the tithe and generosity. Malachi says those who rob God in tithes and offerings live under a curse, but the windows of heaven open over those who bring the tithe. No one can make that quality decision for you.

    “God penalizes the thief, but always promotes the seed sower.”

    • Malachi 3:8-10