Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Pastor Rick Warren: 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. Well, what do you say we wrap it up with the final part of a message called The Laws of Sowing and Reaping.

Now, here's the next law, number six. I always reap more than I sow. This is always true for good or for bad, positively or negatively in your life. You will always reap more than you sow. This is the principle of multiplication.

If I take one kernel of corn and I plant that one kernel of corn in the ground, I don't get one kernel of corn back. I get a corn stalk. And on that corn stalk, I get multiple ears. And on each of those ears, I get hundreds of kernels.

This is the exponential power of the seed principle that God has established the universe to handle, that you always get more out of it than you put into it because what you sow, you're going to reap, but it always, you always end up reaping more.

Now, in the parable of the soils, Jesus points this out. And in, in Mark chapter 4, verse 8, he says, "Some seed fell on good soil, and it came up, and it grew, and it produced a crop, multiplying 30, 60, and even 100 times." And he's saying here, you know, not all your plants bear the same fruit. Some of them are a 30-fold increase. Some are a 60-fold increase, some a 100-fold increase. But it's true in any area of your life. And if you think that if you go out and you do one gossip, you're going to get one gossip back, you're kidding yourself. You go out and gossip somebody, you're now in the chain. You're now in the gossip chain. And you're going to get more against you than you put out.

It's why I never, never attack back on my attackers. Why? I don't want to get caught in the chain. So no matter what anybody says to me, I don't want to say anything bad back them because if I do, I know what's going to happen. I'm going to reap more than I sowed. I'm not about to let that one happen. What I want to do is the exact opposite. I want to bless them. I want to pray for them. The Bible says, "Pray for those who persecute you. Bless those who criticize you. Love love your enemies." Why? Because that's what I want back. I want love back, I want blessing back.

And so whatever you give out, you, it's not one for one. And it works positively or negatively in your life. Now, here's the next principle. Number seven. I can increase my harvest by planting more seed. I can increase my harvest by planting more seed. This is the law of proportion, that we always reap in proportion to what we sow. And if I sow a bunch of seed, I'm going to get a bunch of crops. If I sow a little seed, I get a little crop. If I sow no seed, I get no crop.

Now, this is true in giving. It's true in tithing. It's true in energy expenditure. It's true in talent, it's true in intelligence, it's true in every area of your life that I can increase my harvest by planting more seed. Second Corinthians chapter 9 says this. Now, remember this. "Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows generously will also reap generously." In other words, that's proportion.

"Now, each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." Now, this particular passage happens to be talking about money as a seed. It's more than just money. But in here, it's talking about giving. And it's basically saying, you can't out give God. And I've told you my story on that many times, so I don't have to cover that one again. You cannot out give God. You play a game with God, God says, "Rick, you give to me and I'll give to you, and we'll see who wins."

And the more you sow, the more you're blessed, the more you reap. And God loves a cheerful giver. I think I've told you this before, the Greek word there for cheerful is the word hilarios in Greek. We get the word hilarious from. Why? Because God loves your heart attitude. God doesn't need your money. He wants what it represents, your heart, your attitude.

Now, what is a seed? If I can plant more seed and get more harvest, what is a seed? A seed is anything that I value that I give it away. If I give wisdom away, then I get more wisdom back. If I give love away, I get more love back. If I give my energy away, I get more energy back. If I give my money away, God makes sure I get more back. If I give my time away, I get more back. People say, "I don't have time to help other people." That's your problem. Whatever you need more of, you need to give away.

You say, "I don't have enough time to give what I need to." Give some of it away. Start serving unselfishly in some area where you're not getting paid back, but it's just a free-for-all, free gift of your time. A free gift of your energy, a free gift of your wisdom. And you take on a younger person and you start to mentor them, and you don't have time to do that, but you do it because what you give, you're going to get back.

A seed is anything that I sow, that I give away, I let go of, instead of holding it on to myself. Now, this law of generosity, as I said earlier, it works for anybody. It even works for unbelievers. That's why a lot of businessmen have actually used the principles of the Bible, who are not believers in Jesus Christ. But if you run your business with integrity and with generosity and with humility and on the laws of of the harvest, you're going to be blessed.

See, the law of gravity doesn't just work for Christians. It works for everybody. And the law of magnetism doesn't doesn't just work for believers. It works for everybody. And the laws of the harvest, the laws of sowing and reaping, work for anybody, whether they're a believer or not. And you can actually see them in some self-help books by people who have no interest in God.

Here's the general principle. Proverbs 20, 11, 24. I love this. The Message paraphrase. "The world of the generous gets larger and larger. But the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller." We'll cover that when we get to the laws of investing. But number eight. Number eight is it's time to start planting now. The time to start planting is now. It all starts as a seed, nothing happens until the seed's planted, whatever I sow is what I'm going to reap.

I'm always going to reap more than I sow. And I can increase the the harvest by planting more seed. But the time to plant is now. You don't wait for a better time. The sooner, the better. I I talk to people all the time who think, "One of these days, I'm going to," and then they have their idea. "When I retire one day, or when I get to a certain economic level, then I'm going to start giving. Or when I this happens, then I'm going to," and you have, "One of these days is none of these days."

The point is, you don't wait for things to get better. You start planning now. Why? Because the sooner you plant, the longer you're going to have the harvest in the rest of your life. I've mentioned this in every session in this series on financial fitness. The law of compounding interest is the single most powerful force on the planet. That mathematical law of compounding interest.

And if you start saving as a young person and you put little by little away, it multiplies. And by the time you get out there, it's really big. It's small at the start, but it starts to J-curve. And if the sooner you start planting seeds, the sooner you're going to start reaping the harvest.

Now notice this verse, what Solomon said. Ecclesiastes chapter 11. "Those who wait for perfect weather will never plant seeds. And those who look at every cloud, like the stock market report, will never reap a harvest." Why? Because perfection paralyzes potential. How many of you would agree, if you wait for perfect conditions, you never get anything done? It's obvious. It's obvious. So whatever you're going to start doing, start doing it now. Now is when you need help. Start planting now.

Look at the next verse. Ecclesiastes 11:6. "Do your planting in the morning. Oh, and in the evening, too. Because you never know whether it will all grow well, or whether one planting will do better than the others." Now, we're going to come back in a future session and deal with this verse again in the laws of investing. But he said, "You should be planting all the time. Everywhere you go, every day think of, well, what seeds am I going to plant today? What seeds of love, what seeds of grace, what seeds of money, what seeds of energy, what seeds of of wisdom? How can I plant in other people's lives today?" You get up every day and just think, "I'm a farmer today. And I'm going to be a farmer at the grocery store, and I'm going to be a farmer at work, and I'm going to be a farmer at school, and I'm going to plant good seeds everywhere." Because if I plant them all, some of that stuff's going to pop up and crop in in 30-fold.

Look at the next verse. Second Corinthians 9, verse 10. "For God who supplies seed to the farmer and bread to eat." By the way, where's all the seed come from? It comes from God. The the seed that the farmer has comes from God. "For God who supplies seed to the farmer and bread to eat will give you more and more seed, give you more and more seed to plant, and will make it grow, so that you can give away more and more fruit from your harvest."

Now, now this verse is a promise about being generous with money. But it applies more than to just money. The more you give away, the more you're going to get back. This is the law of the harvest. And one of the things that the seeds are are our words. You need to start thinking of your words as seeds. And when you say words, you plant them in the minds of your children. You plant them in the minds of your friends. You plant them in the minds of your spouse, and they are going to grow, and they are going to bear fruit. And what you sow, you're going to reap.

So, let me ask you. Are you really watching your words? You better say them wisely because every word is a seed. And so I have to ask myself, am I sowing seeds of trust or distrust when I speak? Am I sowing words of kindness, or am I sowing words of meanness? Anger or apathy? Am I sowing words that build up, or am I planting words that tear down? Why? Why is that important? Because I will reap what I sow. And so will you.

Now, it's interesting that the Bible says that having spiritual conversations with other people is planting seeds. The Bible calls it that. That when you share your faith with an unbeliever, when you talk to your neighbor, when you talk to a friend, when you talk to somebody at work about the Lord, every time you share your faith, God says, "That's planting a seed. And you're going to bear fruit from it."

God calls this spiritual seed planting, spiritual sowing. And there are many, many scriptures that talk about the fact that the more I talk to other people about Jesus, the more seeds I am planting and the more harvest I'm going to have. Look at this verse on the screen. Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 9:11. "Reaping a material harvest is appropriate if we have sown spiritual seed among you." He's making this point loud and clear that I'm going to reap a benefit from talking to other people about the Lord.

Now, there's one other principle. And it is this. To reap the harvest, I must be patient and not give up. To reap the harvest that God wants me to have, I must be patient and not give up. Why? Because remember there's always the delay between sowing and reaping. You plant in one season and you harvest in another.

The principle that we're talking about today, friends, is a kingdom principle. It's one of the principles that the Kingdom of God operates on. Jesus said it like this in Mark chapter 4. "This is what the Kingdom of God is like." He said, "This is what the Kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. And night and day, whether he's sleeping or he gets up, the seed sprouts and grows." Says, you know, "Regardless of what he's doing, he's planted it, now it's still growing, he's not even there. Though he doesn't know how." He can't even figure it out. "All by itself, the soil produces grain. First, the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head." And what's he saying there? He's saying the results will come, and they will come slowly, and they will come, and they will come systematically, and they will come in a process. I don't have time to unpack all the meaning of this verse, but he is saying it takes time. And because it takes time, look at the next verse. "We must not become tired of doing good. We will reap a harvest at the right time if we do not give up."

Now, I want you to circle the word will. "We will reap a harvest." That's a promise. Not we might, not we shall, not we hope, not we wish. "We will reap a harvest at the right time if we do not give up." You got to hang on. And while you're waiting, God is working. Now, as your pastor who loves you, let me just say this to you heart to heart. You got to forget about last year's crop failure. Because there's nothing you can do about it.

You've had many years of crop failure in your life. You have wasted years and so have I. You have wasted words and so have I. You have wasted money and so have I. You have wasted relationships and so have I. You have wasted goodwill in people's lives and so have I. And you can't do anything about the crop failures of the past. You're going to have to learn to live with the consequences of your failures. And there are consequences to everything.

But what you've got to do is you got to start focusing on the long-term harvest in your life, not the short-term pleasure. The long-term harvest. I can help you change by applying the scriptures to your life, but you can't do it overnight. You didn't get the way you got financially overnight. You took years getting messed up. And it's going to take a while getting it undone. Now, some of you, your finances are in such a mess, it's probably brought tears to your eyes.

And you could probably, if you were honest, admit that you have sat with your wife or your husband and teared up a little bit and thought, "How are we going to make this? We are not making it. In fact, we're going in reverse. In fact, it's getting worse. We're worse off than we were a year ago." And it's brought some grief. Well, let me give you a verse and give you a promise. Psalm 126. "Let those grief tears water the seeds you plant now. Those who plant in tears," Psalm 126, "Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go out to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest."

Question: What loss has you grieving? What lack has you grieving? What need have you been grieving over? Maybe maybe you lost your job. Maybe you lost a loved one. Maybe you lost your savings. Maybe you lost half of your retirement in the last couple years. Maybe you lost your dream. Maybe you lost your marriage. Maybe you lost your health. Mourning is okay. Moaning is not. Big difference. Mourning is okay. Grief is a legitimate response to loss. Grief is good. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." If you let your mourning, your grief turn you to God, it's a good thing.

Moaning is not. What's moaning? It's when you're griping and you're whining and you're complaining to God all the time, "Lord, I don't have work, I don't have money, I don't." And God's saying, "Are you planting any seeds? Are you just going to complain? What are you waiting on? You're not waiting on me. You can pray all you want, you need to go plant some seeds. Whatever you need more of, you need to give away." Let's bow our heads.

I want you to pray this prayer in your heart. Dear God, I have learned some new things about how the universe operates today. I realize that everything starts as a seed. It may be a word. It may be a seed of money. It may be a seed of energy, a seed of reputation, a seed of wisdom. But nothing happens until that seed is planted. Unless the grain is buried in the ground, it cannot reproduce.

I realize that whatever I sow is what I will reap, and I've often sowed one thing and wanted to reap the opposite. And that's not going to happen. I've given out negative and wanted positive. That's not going to happen. Today I realize that I'm not the only sower. And that I have been reaping both blessings and problems from people who went before me and people who are around me.

But I can make a choice, and I can choose to plant good seed. Forgive me for all the times I've been in a hurry. Help me to realize and remember that I reap in a different season than I sow, that there's a time to plant and there's a time to harvest, and that while I'm waiting, you're working. Help me to remember when I start to speak, that I'm always going to reap more than I sow. And make sure that it's good seed that comes out of my mouth.

Help me to realize that I can increase my harvest by planting more seed. Lord, I want to learn to be financially generous more every year of my life. I want to give away more every year. I don't want to be stingy. I want to be generous. That's scary to me, but I want to learn to trust you. And I have to admit, Lord, that I have been too afraid to tithe. And I've been too afraid to give away my love to some people. And I've been too afraid to show who I really am to others.

Help me to realize that the time to start planting is right now. That there're never going to be any perfect conditions. I'm going to start planting today. And I want to plant in the morning, and the evening, and every day. I want to look as I go out to to work or to school. And I just want to be a seed planter everywhere I go. While I'm waiting, help me to be patient and not give up, to claim the promise that we must not become tired of doing good, but we will reap a harvest at the right time if we do not give up.

Jesus Christ, I need you to be the manager of my life, finances, and everything else. And I want to love you and trust you, and I want to obey your laws even when I don't understand them. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

You know, if you just prayed that prayer for the very first time, or you just recommitted your life to Jesus again today, would you let me know about it? There's something real about sharing your commitment. So write me, Rick, at pastorrick.com and say, "Rick, I prayed that prayer of commitment. I gave my life to Christ." And I'll send you some material that'll help you on your journey with Jesus, and I'll also pray for you. God bless you.

Guest (Male): Wow, some powerful words from Pastor Rick today. And now this is really one of my favorite parts of the broadcast. This is letters from our listeners. And now here's Rick.

Pastor Rick Warren: Hi everybody. Today, I want to read part of a letter that I received from June, who is a prisoner that was given a second chance by God. He wrote this. "I'm a prisoner here in the National Penitentiary, serving my sentence. I came to know the Lord inside my cell 13 years ago. And now I'm serving the Lord as an inmate pastor. Rick, I always use your Daily Hope preaching and devotionals in sharing the Words of God to my fellow prisoners. And I see people come to the Lord in many, many ways.

"You know, before I was in prison, and I came to know the Lord, I was a high-ranking police officer. And I was about to commit suicide because of the numerous charges filed against me. But when God saved me physically and spiritually, my journey in prison became the most wonderful vessel used by God to manifest His love to me. He never leaves me, nor forsakes me, and may His name always be glorified. Thank you, Pastor Rick, you're an inspiration and encouragement to all of us."

Well, June, it's amazing to know your story and to hear that you're using the Daily Hope messages to teach your fellow inmates about Jesus Christ. That is fantastic. I couldn't be more happy. They need to hear that God gives second chances. They need to hear that He still has a plan and purpose for their lives, even though they're in prison. Your story is a great reminder that any one of us can use what we learn through Daily Hope, podcast, devotionals, and we can take these things and teach others about God's grace and forgiveness and unconditional love. Keep it up, my friend. God bless you.

Guest (Male): You know, I share Pastor Rick's Daily Hope all the time. And whether it's a friend or someone you meet in a restaurant, everyone needs hope and encouragement from the Bible every day. So tell the people you know and love about Daily Hope. Be sure to 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.