This parable is about stewardship. In the Bible, stewardship means managing God’s creation and resources as a caretaker rather than an owner. The core idea is that God owns everything, and humans are the managers appointed to care for His world, time and gifts.
Psalm 24:1 The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
American culture has progressively shifted toward hyper-individualism and inward self-focus. Hyper-individualism is an extreme cultural and social mindset that prioritizes the personal freedom, rights and desires of the singular self over collective well-being and community responsibility. It’s a technical way to say that the rule of the day has become selfishness. For decades now the bookstores and daytime talk shows focused on one topic, self! Self-help, self-evaluation, self-preservation, self-expression, and ultimately self-glorification has created a “me first” mentality that is …
In our series “Seek first the kingdom of God” we restate every week that that phrase means with the highest priority we seek to bring every are of life under God’s rule. We that are saved, have changed kingdoms. The kingdom of darkness was living for the glory and pleasure of self but now that we’re saved, we’ve entered the spiritual realm of God’s kingdom, and He has definite commands for how life is to be lived in all areas. We’ve looked at marriage and home life under God’s rule, now the scriptures turn to a different realm of life, our workplace life.
In our series “Seek first the kingdom of God” last week we dealt with God’s rule for marriage. This week I want to bring you a message about seeking God’s kingdom first in your home. Again, this means to come into alignment with God’s rule over every area of life. The first portion of scripture we read has to do with singleness. What to do if you’re a Christian and you’re not married. Being single offers you the unique advantage of
The command of Jesus is to seek first the kingdom of God which means that our highest priority in life is to come into alignment with God’s rule. The portion of scripture we just read is about how marriage is supposed to be lived by two Christians in God’s kingdom. At the time this was written, it was revolutionary because in the Greco-Roman world of that time wives were treated as property, while men frequently sought sexual gratification outside the marriage. Ephesus was the epicenter of the cult of Artemis. While the cult empowered women to be priestesses and elevated women to independence, and competitive roles. So, the commands given by the Holy Spirit to them through Paul were completely against their culture.
Fast forward 1950 years to today and
This scripture is a portion of Jesus’s sermon on the mount which is a kingdom message. What he is dealing with here is that we cannot faithfully serve two masters because our true allegiance will always favor one above the other. The masters contrasted are God and mammon. Mammon is an Aramaic term that means “wealth or material possessions that you put your trust in”. It’s not a sin to have wealth or material possessions as long as you don’t look to them for your security.
Last week I preached from the first parable of the sower, and how that parable reveals the different responses that people have to hearing the word of God. Jesus said that the seed in that parable is the word of God and the different soils are the different conditions of the hearts that hear. The parable we just read builds on that idea. When this parable is explained to his disciples, he plainly states the meaning of each item in the parable. This time he tells us who the sower of the good seed is…it’s himself. The good seed this time is not the word of God, but what the word of God has produced…children of the kingdom
During the time of Jesus, farmers sowed seeds primarily by scattering them by hand. A farmer would carry the seeds in a large woven pouch or fold of their cloak, walking through the fields and throwing the seeds in a sweeping motion. The parable we just read is the first parable spoken by Jesus recorded in scripture. It uses the metaphor of a farmer scattering seed over different kinds of ground to illustrate
The two verses we just read come immediately after Jesus told his first parable recorded in scripture. They had never heard him speak to the people in this manner before and they were puzzled by it. A parable is both simple and complex, it’s meant to convey truth and conceal it. At this point in the Lord’s ministry there were many in the crowd who didn’t believe he was their Messiah as well as some that did. The more truth you hear, the more you are responsible for, so …
Last week began a series of messages all about the kingdom of God. Jesus made the statement “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost”. What was lost was the kingdom of God or God’s reign on the earth. Through Adam’s fall, man was lost and Satan’s kingdom entered in the world. That’s why the world is full of darkness, confusion, perversion, and rebellion. When Jesus Christ entered the creation through the womb of a virgin, God inserted himself into our mess. At thirty years old he began his public ministry and the first message he ever preached was “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand”.