Episode 812 Sower of Seeds
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Welcome to tonight's. Saturday night, special episode, 812.
[00:00:06] Mark Aho: [00:00:06] I'm Mark, Idaho, author of building wealth and living in faith. I challenge you to invest in yourself. Invest in others. Develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling, having a right relationship between faith and money is key to doing that.
[00:00:31] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer
[00:00:53] Scott Maderer: [00:00:53] no, the truth is sometimes plants that some people might look at is flowers and pretty and attractive and a [00:01:00] good plant to have someone else sees a weed because it's growing in a place when they don't want it. It's growing in their garden. It's choking out the nutrients it's using energy that could be spent to do something more beneficial.
[00:01:14] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be. Then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
[00:01:47] Today's spiritual foundation episode about impacting the world. I talk with you about Matthew chapter 13, verses 24 through 30 and 36 through 43. I talk about how we should not be the weeds for [00:02:00] others, but instead be the wheat. And I also share how all too often, if we aren't careful, we find ourselves being the weeds.
[00:02:09] So in this chapter, 13 of Matthew, there's a whole series of parables one right after the other. And in fact, the parable of the Pearl is in here and others as well. But the one I wanted to focus on today is called the parable of the weeds. It starts in verse 24 of chapter 13 of Matthew, where it says Jesus told them another parable.
[00:02:34] The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away when the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner servants came to him and said, sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field?
[00:02:54] Where then did the weeds come from an enemy? Did this, he replied [00:03:00] and the servants asked him, do you want us to go and pull them up? No, he answered because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them, let both grow together until the harvest. At that time, I will tell the harvesters first, collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned.
[00:03:16] Then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn that he left the crowd and went into his house later. Jesus's disciples came to him and said, explained to us the parable of the wheat and the field. And he answered the one who sowed the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world. And the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom.
[00:03:35] The weeds are the people of the evil one and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age. And the harvesters are angels. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire. So it will be at the end of the age, the son of man will send out his angels and they will weed out his kingdom, everything that causes sin and all who do evil, they will throw them into the blazing furnace where they will be w where there will be weeping and gnashing [00:04:00] of teeth.
[00:04:00] Then the righteous will shine like the sun and the kingdom of the father. Whoever has ears. Let him hear. This is one of those passages that I think can be taken at a number of different levels. And one level that I wanted to talk about today, when we're talking about impacting the world, is this idea.
[00:04:19] Of how sometimes I think when we have good fruits, when we have things out in the world that are good and are making a positive impact, we can damage them by having weeds grow up around them. Those weeds could be literal. Things that are planted by an enemy or are taken out against us, but they also can be our own actions or in our own attitudes and the things that we do ourselves, we can find ourselves being weeds for ourselves.
[00:04:50] And what's more, we can often find ourselves being weeds for others as well, where without meaning to, without intending to we cause harm for [00:05:00] others. And the impact that we end up having on the world is negative instead of positive. I think it's all too easy for that to happen, but the truth is we're called to be the wheat.
[00:05:12] And if you think about wheat, these agrarian analogies and parables that are used in the Bible sometimes seem a little foreign to us in modern times. But even today, if you think about wheat, it is this incredible crop that we use in so many things. Just gas. Someone who has gluten sensitivity or wheat sensitivity wheat is used in tons of food, not just bread, but many other foods it's used to make beer.
[00:05:41] It's used to make spirits is used to make all sorts of other things that we find beneficial and useful in various settings. And wheat is a powerful crop. In fact, the beginning, when we found the ways to make things like wheat and barley and rice, these grain crops, these staples, that [00:06:00] was probably the beginning of civilization in cities and agriculture, and being able to settle down because it was such a staple.
[00:06:10] It was something that we could grow and we could continue to make many different foods from it. But instead what often happens to us as we find ourselves being the weeds, and I've always loved the definition of a weed is simply a plant that's growing, where you don't want it. Yeah, the truth is sometimes plants that some people might look at as flowers and pretty and attractive and a good plant to have someone else seizes a weed because it's growing in a place where they don't want it.
[00:06:40] It's growing in their garden. It's choking out the nutrients it's using energy that could be spent to do something more beneficial. I don't think the weeds here are necessarily just evil, but it's all of those things that we do for ourselves. And for others that sucks the energy in the [00:07:00] impact out of the situation that instead of building up, begins to tear down, instead of lifting others up, we tear them down.
[00:07:09] We don't do it intentionally necessarily, but we do it all too often. So my challenge to you this week is to figure out. How are you acting in the world today? How are you making an impact in the world today? And are you setting out to be the wheat or are you unintentionally an accident being the weeds?
[00:07:31] Thanks for listening.
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