Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hey everybody, welcome to Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope. Well, we’re talking about your money. That’s right. We’re continuing a powerful series called Financial Fitness. Rick is opening God’s Word and showing us how to manage what we’ve been given with wisdom, faith, and purpose. And I know if you apply these biblical principles, you’ll start to experience true financial freedom and lasting peace.

Such a great lesson today. We’re hearing part one of a message called The Laws of Sowing and Reaping.

Pastor Rick Warren: Now the Bible tells us that God is an organized God. God is not a God of chaos; he’s very orderly. In fact, the more we look at the universe, the more we realize how organized everything really is. Science continues to show us things we didn't even know five years ago about the ecosystems on planet earth and even the ecosystems in the universe that everything is finely tuned. Did you know that if our earth which is tilted on an axis, if it was one degree tilted this way we would burn up and one degree that way we would freeze up? It is at the exact angle axis to sustain human life.

Everything is connected and there are laws. God has established the universe around certain natural or physical and spiritual laws. There are laws of physics. There are laws of mathematics. There are laws of chemistry. We know these things. We know that there are spiritual laws. We get the laws of nature obviously by looking at God's creation. We get the spiritual laws by looking at God's Word.

The amazing thing is this: you don't have to understand these laws to benefit from them. In other words, you don't have to understand why God does what he does. You just have to cooperate with it. And if you do, you're going to benefit whether you understand the law or not. For instance, I don't understand the law of magnetism. Now, if I wanted to, I could obviously go study it; I just haven't chosen to do so. I don't know how magnetism works, but it doesn't stop me from using a compass when I get lost. I don't have to understand how it works; I just know it works.

I don't understand the laws of electricity, but it doesn't stop me from flipping a switch and using a light. I don't understand the laws that cause the chemical reactions in internal combustion; it doesn't stop me from driving a car. And I don't understand the law of gravity—now nobody understands that one. Even Einstein said nobody understands the law of gravity. In fact, it doesn't make sense because when something's spinning around, does that usually draw things to it or does it repel them? It repels them. And the earth is spinning around. It seems like we should be floating off that way instead of being held down. It doesn't make sense. No scientist has ever given a full explanation of gravity; we're still studying it.

But I am sure glad that that law, the law of gravity, is consistent. What if Tuesday and Thursdays were non-gravity days? Would that mess up your schedule a little bit? Yeah. And the thing about God's laws is that because they are God's laws, they are always true, and because they're always true, you can count on them. The reason we were able to send in the Apollo program to send a guy to the moon and back is because there's certain laws of physics we know are inviolable. They cannot be changed. They're not theories; they are laws, and if you do certain things, you can count on it. And that's the only way we make these scientific breakthroughs.

In this series, we're looking at God's laws of money. We're looking at the laws of wealth. We're looking at the laws of prosperity. I said this last week: we are not a prosperity gospel church. We do not believe that God wants everybody to be a millionaire. In fact, Jesus taught the exact opposite. Jesus said a man's life consists not in the abundance of things that you possess, and it's not about the acquisition of things. But God has given certain laws about finances in his Word: laws of spending, laws of saving, laws of investing, laws of managing and using, laws of insuring, laws of giving.

There are all kinds of laws about money that if you do these things, whether you understand them or not, you will get blessed by them. You just cooperate with them. And so we're looking at them. There are two books in the Bible that deal a lot with this: the book of Proverbs and the book of Ecclesiastes. I mentioned last week that Solomon was the king of Israel. He was the son of David. And when he became king, God said, "Ask Solomon for anything you want and I will give it to you." Solomon thought about it and he said, "Lord, what I want more than anything else is wisdom. Wisdom. Make me wise."

God said, "Solomon, that's not only a great request, it's the greatest one, and because you asked the right thing, I'm going to give you everything else. I'm going to give you power and I'm going to give you wealth as well as wisdom." Solomon became the wisest man who ever lived and he also became the wealthiest man. And as a result, he wrote two books, and a lot of it has to do with money management: the book of Ecclesiastes and the book of Proverbs. In this series, week one we started looking at these laws. And first we looked at Jesus' laws of wise money management—seven laws of wise money management—and if you missed that, you're going to want to go back and listen to that message online.

Then last week we looked at the law of contentment, and we talked about the five reasons why we need to learn to be content and the four ways to enjoy more on less. This week we’re going to look at a third foundational law of money management and it is called the law or the laws of sowing and reaping. The laws of sowing and reaping. If you'll look at your outlines, the first verse on the outline is Proverbs chapter 11 verse 18. In that verse, we have one example of the law of sowing and reaping. It says there: "The wicked man earns deceptive wages." In other words, he earns them dishonestly. "But he who sows righteousness will be certain to reap a reward." Now circle the word sow and the word reap.

What's he talking about here? This obviously is a verse about money. He's talking about wages here. He's talking about your income. And he says there's a dishonest way to make money and there's an honest way to make money, and he says if you sow honestly, you're going to reap a reward. For thousands of years, the only way people did farming was what was called sowing. They didn't take a single seed and put it in the ground, dig a hole and cover it up, put a seed in the ground, dig a hole and cover it up. Nobody did that. And they certainly didn't have machines that could poke holes and automatically seed a field like they do today.

For thousands of years, people would wear a little knapsack filled with grain or corn or seed or whatever, and as a farmer would walk through the field, he would sow, which means he'd grab a handful of the seed and he'd throw it. And this is called broadcasting. It's where we get the term for television. Broadcasting means you're broadly casting it over a large area as opposed to narrowcasting which is a very specific target. Broadcasting you throw seed over an area and some of that seed the birds eat and some of it lands on rock and some of it actually gets planted and it begins to grow.

The principle is: whatever you sow you will reap in life. I want us to understand that this principle applies not just in your money. What we're going to look at today, these nine laws will apply in your relationships, in your time, in your words, in your talent, in the way that you use your energy and every other area. But let's get right into it. Here are the nine laws of sowing and reaping from the Word of God. Number one: everything starts as a seed. Everything in life starts as a seed. Every idea is a seed. Every dream is a seed. Every achievement is a seed. Every building that's built firstly was a seed thought. It was a seed idea. Your life began as a seed.

Everything starts as a seed in this planet. And God created the world around what he calls the seed principle. In the very first chapter of the Bible, God calls this to our attention. Genesis chapter 1 verse 11: God said, "Let the land have seed-bearing plants and let the trees that bear fruit with seed in it according to their varieties." Everybody's heard the old cliché that anybody can count the seeds in an apple but only God knows the number of apples in a seed. Because a seed has exponential potential. You could take one seed, plant it in the ground, that seed grows into a giant tree which produces fruit which has other seeds which create more trees and more trees, and over thousands of years you could have an entire forest of hundreds of thousands of acres from one single seed.

The Bible says in the book of Zephaniah, "Do not despise the day of small things" because everything starts small. It starts as a seed. I grew up in Northern California in the Redwood country. The Redwoods are the largest living things on the planet. Nothing is bigger than the Northern California Redwoods, not the whales or anything else. In fact, the largest living thing on the planet is in Humboldt County. It is a Redwood tree that is 380 feet tall. I grew up in a little town called Redwood Valley, about 500 people. I have seen Redwood trees where the trunk was bigger than this half of the stage. And when you would cut it off, you could turn it into a dance floor.

I have seen Redwood trees where they actually wanted to build a road and they would carve out the road through the middle of the Redwood, and you could drive through the Redwood tree and the tree is still growing hundreds of feet on top of it. They are enormous, enormous trees. And yet if you've ever seen a Redwood tree seed, they're dinky. They're tiny. It's like a little speck of sand or pepper. And you would look at this little Redwood seed and you go, "How in the world could something so big come from something so small, so tiny?" Well, that is the exponential potential in every seed. Everything starts with a seed idea, a seed thought, a seed dream.

When I started Saddleback with Kay, one of the verses that I held on to is this verse. It's on the screen. Job 8 verse 7 says this: "Though what you start will seem small and insignificant, you'll end up in the future with much." And that's what happened. Everything starts as a seed. Law number two is this: nothing happens until the seed's planted. Nothing happens in your life until the seed is planted. A couple years ago, I bought some pumpkin seeds because I like to grow vegetables. It's just one of the ways I relax and I like to garden and grow fresh things and I like to watch stuff grow. I got some pumpkin seeds.

Those pumpkins never produced. And I couldn't figure out why until last week I was going through the garage and on a shelf I found those pumpkin seeds. Of course they didn't produce because I never planted them. A seed that's in a box on a shelf is worthless. Seeds are meant to be planted. Now imagine a farmer going out and spending his life savings to buy a bunch of seed and he's got it in his barn, and as he gets ready to start springtime, he's looking out on a barren field and he bought all this seed and all of a sudden he goes, "I don't know if I should plant this or not because all my life savings is tied up in that seed. And if I plant it, I might lose it, and if I lose it, I've lost my life savings. I don't think I want to plant it. I'm going to play it safe. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I'm not going to plant my seed. I'm simply going to hold on to it."

We would call that farmer a fool. Because seed is worthless unless it's planted. You got to put it in the ground. It's like the old things on the Coke cans: no deposit, no return. You got to make a deposit with it. Now here's a farmer and he's like some of you who are out of work or your finances are barren. And he's got a barren field. And he looks at this field and there's no crop, there's no produce, there's no income. He's got a field that's producing no income in his life. Now what does the farmer do when he's got a barren field and it's producing no income? Well, he doesn't complain about it. "I can't believe the terrible environment we're in right now. I've got a barren field." He doesn't worry about it. He doesn't gripe about it. "The economy is so bad. It's terrible. I'm not making any money." He doesn't even pray about it. He just goes out and starts planting some seed.

Because nothing's going to happen until he plants a seed. He can pray all he wants and it's not going to produce fruit. All the prayer in the world is not going to produce fruit. He's got to plant. He's got to plant some seed. Now some of you think you're waiting on God. You think you're waiting on God for that job. You think you're waiting on God for a husband. You think you're waiting on God for the big deal. You think you're waiting on God for the windfall, for the income to come in that's there. And God said, "You think you're waiting on me? I'm waiting on you. I'm waiting for you to plant some seed." It isn't going to happen until you plant some seed. Everything in life starts as a seed—a relationship, a marriage, a business, a church—everything starts as a seed. And nothing happens until the seed is planted.

Why is God doing this? Because planting is an act of faith. I take what I've got and I give it away and I put it in the ground and I bury it. And that takes an act of faith because it takes what I've got and I let go of it. And God says that planting is an act of faith and that brings glory to God. Jesus explained this principle when he was trying to explain why he came to earth to die on the cross. He used a principle of sowing and reaping. Look at this next verse. In John 12:24 Jesus said, "Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, it cannot reproduce." As long as it's stocked in the barn, it's worthless. "Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground"—he's talking about his own death—"it cannot reproduce. But if it dies, it will produce much fruit." Millions of people will be saved and get to go to heaven because of my death and my burial. He said, "I'm going to plant a seed, and the seed is going to be my life."

Here's a principle. I want you to write this down. Whenever I have a need, I plant a seed. Whenever I have a need, I plant a seed. I don't know what you need: more time, more energy, more money, more support, more relationships, more wisdom. I don't know what you want, but whatever you need more of, you plant a seed. This is the principle of sowing and reaping. When I have a need, I don't gripe about it. I don't complain about it. I don't wish about it. I don't even have to pray about it. I just plant a seed.

Guest (Male): What a fantastic message from Pastor Rick. You know, Daily Hope is changing lives every day. Here’s Pastor Rick with a letter from one of our listeners.

Pastor Rick Warren: You know, friends, it always encourages me to hear how God is using Daily Hope to help you, and so thanks for your letters. And I want to read one to you today from a woman named Judith. She said, "Dear Pastor Rick, after college I met and married a man that God did not intend for me. But I became pregnant with triplets and the marriage was tumultuous and I endured more pain and more loneliness and more sadness than I could have ever imagined. But God still showed me his grace and love and he sustained and he comforted me.

"But as I was left to work and care for three babies, I clung on to God and I listened to your Daily Hope podcast every day. And sometimes it was as if God was speaking directly to me. I read your Daily Hope devotionals and I read the Bible and I prayed and it was tough, but I survived and I'm still surviving because of God. After your series on tithing, I felt convicted and started tithing even though mathematically it was literally impossible for me to tithe. But I trusted God with what I had, and God has covered the tithing and blessed me with even more. And I'm now starting your series on prayer and I can't wait to grow closer to God and walk in his purposes for my life instead of my own purposes. Thank you, Pastor Rick, for doing God's work."

Well Judith, I want to thank you. Thank you that you wrapped your arms tightly around God during such an incredibly hard season in your life. You've been through some really challenging times, and I'm blessed to see that Daily Hope has played a part in deepening your trust in God. You're seeing God's faithfulness and you're seeing his provision, and that's increasing your trust and that makes me smile. God bless you, Judith.

Guest (Male): You know, Pastor Rick would love to hear how this broadcast has blessed you. So please send him an email at rick@pastorrick.com. That’s rick@pastorrick.com. It’s a simple way to encourage and bless Pastor Rick and the whole Daily Hope team. We hope you’ll join us next time as we look into God’s Word for our Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope and your generous financial support.