DIVINE PARTNERSHIP
Today we are going to study how God intended for us to receive from him or reap a harvest.
It starts by understanding divine partnership, God is the one who provides the promises, and you are the one who has to receive them.
Mark 4:26-29 And He said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, 27 and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. 28 For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
First we have to understand some important truths about this parable.
Mark 4:13 13 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?
Jesus is saying that understanding the law of sowing and reaping is the key to understanding all other parables.
Mark 4:14 The sower sows the word.
Jesus teaches us that the seed represents the word of God.
Mark 4:26 And He said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.
Jesus is teaching that the kingdom doesn’t work off of the mysterious will of God but off of spiritual laws, so that everyone has equal access.
Let’s look at divine partnership.
1) God is responsible to provide the seed that reproduces after his own kind.
Isaiah 55:10-11 NLT “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. 11 It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to and it will prosper everywhere I send it.
Hebrews 4:12 AMPC For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.
1 Thessalonians 2:13 AMPC And we also [especially] thank God continually for this, that when you received the message of God [which you heard] from us, you welcomed it not as the word of [mere] men, but as it truly is, the Word of God, which is effectually at work in you who believe [exercising its superhuman power in those who adhere to and trust in and rely on it].
Luke 1:37 AMPC For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment.
2) Man is responsible to sow the word so that it can be conceived in our hearts.
Mark 4:26-The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground,
This is a picture of Biblical meditation or keeping the seed in the soil so that it can experience conception.
Joshua 1:8 AMPC This Book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe and do according to all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall deal wisely and have good success.
It is important to understand that God cannot sow the seed for you, that is an act of the freewill. You have to decide what to do with the word. In the same way that a farmer can’t believe for a harvest he never sowed seeds for, Jesus said…..
John 14:7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
Jesus said that your spiritual harvest is conditional to the seeds you sow.
3) God is responsible to produce the harvest.
Mark 4:27- 28 and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. 28 For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.
The phrase by itself is AUTOMATOS,” in the Greek, It means “self-moved (‘automatic’), the ground just produces fruit automatically. Likewise, our hearts are made to automatically produce whatever seed we sow in it.
Not only is every word of God designed to produce after its own kind God blessed the place of its conception.
Blessed means divine empowerment to increase and prosper.
God blesses the animals.
Genesis 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth
God blesses humanity.
Genesis 1:27-28 NKJV So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
God’s covenant of abundance.
Deuteronomy 7:12-15 “If you listen to these regulations and faithfully obey them, the Lord your God will keep his covenant of unfailing love with you, as he promised with an oath to your ancestors. 13 He will love you and bless you, and he will give you many children. He will give fertility to your land and your animals. When you arrive in the land he swore to give your ancestors, you will have large harvests of grain, new wine, and olive oil, and great herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. 14 You will be blessed above all the nations of the earth. None of your men or women will be childless, and all your livestock will bear young. 15 And the Lord will protect you from all sickness.
God blesses the place of conception.
4) Man is responsible to reap the harvest.
Mark 4:29 But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
In the natural the harvest doesn’t happen automatically, in all of my years of having a garden, I never had tomatoes fall off the vine, make a single file line and roll into my kitchen.
Faith to receive.
The greatest harvest we ever received was our eternal salvation.
Romans 10:9-10 NKJV that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Let’s think about how this happened.
You didn’t wake up one day and think it is a beautiful Saturday morning, there is not a cloud in the sky, I think I will get saved.
1) First of all salvation had to already have been provided, you can’t have faith for something that hasn’t already been provided.
Titus 2:11 NKJV For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,
2) God had to reveal himself to you.
1 John 4:9-10 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
3) You had to respond by faith.
Faith is a corresponding action to what you believe, it is also an act of your freewill.
Colossians 2:6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.
It’s simple, hear him, obey him and trust him with the results. Rinse and repeat.
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