Latest / The Grove Church / The Parable of the Growing Seed

Transcript

The Parable of the Growing Seed · The Grove Church

• 0:05
  Charlie Loften: The questions we wrestle with as Christians about who God is, how do we live out our faith, what is the Bible, what is the truth of the Bible, what are we supposed to believe? How are we supposed to live? There are really big, deep questions that we ask each other, that we ask God, that we wrestle with ourselves. And that's why the Cultivate podcast exists, to help us go deeper in our understanding of who God is, his word, and the way that he's called us to live. Everyone, welcome to the Cultivate Podcast with The Grove Church.
• 0:38
  I'm Charlie Loften. I'm the lead pastor there, and we are here with I was really I could my brain, I was like, I was gonna turn over there, and you were gonna go. Okay. DJ Bagel Boone.
• 0:52
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. Yo.
• 0:52
  Charlie Loften: Or just DJ Bagel.
• 0:54
  Abigail Boone: DJ Bagel sounds nice, but
• 0:55
  Charlie Loften: Bagel B?
• 0:56
  Abigail Boone: We gotta make sure that people remember I'm a Boone. My niece asked me a couple months ago when I became a boon
• 1:02
  Charlie Loften: who asked you
• 1:02
  Abigail Boone: that my niece which one Ellery. She is a boon. I think she was like mom became a boon when right whenever so she
• 1:11
  Charlie Loften: was some of us were born Boone's.
• 1:13
  Abigail Boone: Yeah, which really blew her mind, but I was like kind of like you were born a Boone. You've always been a Boone. Now. I'm I've always been a Boone to confusing. It's confusing.
• 1:26
  Charlie Loften: It's like when your kid learns that grandma is actually your mom's mom. Yeah, same way. I'm your mom. She's my mom's like, nope.
• 1:34
  Abigail Boone: See that Ellery is the wild child on that side of the family and one time me and my mom were literally standing side by side and she looks at me because so is your mom dead? I was like, you mean this lady right here? That's my mom. She's like, oh, okay. Cool.
• 1:51
  All
• 1:54
  Charlie Loften: right. So we are now 20 No,
• 1:57
  Abigail Boone: I would say we're probably like eighteen
• 2:00
  Charlie Loften: eighteen. Well, we can just find that out right now bagel bagel 123456789101112131415161718.
• 2:14
  Abigail Boone: Am I right? 19.
• 2:17
  Charlie Loften: Okay, right between us. So But this were the price is right. You would win because you didn't go over. Anyways, you catch that reference?
• 2:26
  Abigail Boone: Yeah, never understood it though.
• 2:29
  Charlie Loften: Was the most times you had to you had to you had to bid on what you thought Speaker
• 2:34
  Abigail Boone: the was how
• 2:35
  Charlie Loften: much the product sold for and you won by being the person that bid the lowest the closest to the right amount, but you couldn't go over.
• 2:45
  Abigail Boone: Oh, that was like immediately.
• 2:47
  Charlie Loften: So if you know, it was a $100 and you guessed a $100.01, you automatically lost because you went over the price. You had to go under the price and be the closest to it.
• 2:57
  Abigail Boone: If we were divided like we just were it wouldn't it would like automatically go to
• 3:01
  Charlie Loften: prices right? I was like, how many podcasts episodes we done? You guess 18 and I guess 20
• 3:07
  Abigail Boone: a hundred percent eighteen wins
• 3:08
  Charlie Loften: 18 wins because you didn't go over interesting. So it could have been 19 and I said 20 and you said one
• 3:17
  Abigail Boone: I would still win
• 3:18
  Charlie Loften: you would still have one go over.
• 3:20
  Abigail Boone: That's an interesting strategy.
• 3:22
  Charlie Loften: Blackjack is a little blackjack in there to write and you can't bust. You can't bust it going over you. I know how to play blackjack. You don't. I've used blackjack metaphors very well recently and no one no one no one knows what it
• 3:34
  Abigail Boone: was like a men's game.
• 3:36
  Charlie Loften: Fair enough. We're the parables right now.
• 3:40
  Abigail Boone: Otherwise, I don't want talk about blackjack. I don't want to talk about horses. I just want
• 3:44
  Charlie Loften: to just get right straight to the parable here. Mark chapter four. So And in Mark chapter four, this is a parable that only exists in Mark. It's not a very common one. In the book of Mark, Jesus has already given the parable of the sowers.
• 4:00
  He was just, know, throwing throwing throwing seed out there. He's trying to get them. He's saying these things. He says, hey, if you really are listening, you can hear what I'm saying. Like, why don't you can you explain to us this parable?
• 4:13
  Okay, I'll try to explain this parable to you. And then he talks again a little bit. If you look at verse 21, he said to them, do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed instead? Don't you put it on its stand? So we're sharing some of the imageries that we get from the Sermon on the Mount.
• 4:33
  And then verse 26. And again, this is this is not Sermon on the Mount, but we're getting a little bit of that vibe here in Mark, Mark probably doesn't have it kind of as cohesively as you know, some of the other gospels do. But we're kind of getting we're in that season where Jesus kind of putting his teaching out there. Jesus has a different approach. You need to undo your old approach.
• 4:56
  Here's the new approach. That's kind of where new wine skin. And here we are verse 26, Mark chapter four. He also said, this is what the kingdom of God is like a man scatters a seed on the ground. We're already kind of very similar to what we're I'll get well, we've already did it.
• 5:15
  Just already kind of did this with the parable of the sower. I know we did it
• 5:19
  Abigail Boone: a long time. That was our first episode, but
• 5:22
  Charlie Loften: where we are in Mark that he had just said this Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself, the soil produces grain, first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it because the harvest has come.
• 5:47
  Abigail Boone: What's a sickle? What's a sickle?
• 5:51
  Charlie Loften: Like the like the like the like a like a scythe like the thing that the Grim Reaper thing. Yeah. Okay. Communist the hammer in the sickle, right? You know, it's the big.
• 6:03
  Abigail Boone: Oh, I've never noticed that that's what it is.
• 6:06
  Charlie Loften: But that's what it's called. It's the hammer in the sickle
• 6:07
  Abigail Boone: interesting. I feel like I probably should have asked this question like towards the very beginning of this podcast or this series. People asking what the kingdom of God is like? He starts a lot of his parables like that.
• 6:20
  Charlie Loften: He is. I would say that is that is that is a primary theme of Jesus's. That's what he is trying. He is trying to get them to think about the kingdom. And I think it would have been it would have been a it would have been a it would not have been a common concept.
• 6:39
  Oh, great. This guy's also going to tell us what the kingdom is like, to the degree that it is what he's what he's turning on its head is the idea that Messiah is going to usher in a kingdom,
• 6:51
  Abigail Boone: right?
• 6:51
  Charlie Loften: Okay. So he's using kingdom imagery because that is what is expected from the Messiah.
• 6:57
  Abigail Boone: And
• 6:58
  Charlie Loften: they think of kingdom in terms of we need to get rid of the Romans and have a key have our own king and have our own kingdom. When the Messiah comes, he's going to bring bring back the kingdom of Israel. And so he's changing what it means to be a king, what it means to be in a kingdom, what kind of kingdom we're looking for. It's not the kingdom of Israel, it's not the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is probably not what you think it is.
• 7:27
  And so he is trying he's come again, his prime one of his primary theological goals, especially early on, is to get them to to reprogram them based on all the things that they think they know. It's not that they know some things and he's got to build on it. You do know some things and all the things, you know, you need to forget and relearn them. So we're going to start with it with a concept that you think you understand kingdom and you think of kingdom of Israel and you think of power, you think of walls, think of armies, you think of independence, you think of the strong leader who's going to tell me what to do and do all these things. That's what a kingdom is.
• 8:14
  You know, we know I know what I know what a kingdom is. It's armies and conquering and winning and gold for the king and and and national pride and independence. And that's I know what I know what a kingdom is. You don't have to tell me what a kingdom is. Let tell you what the kingdom of God is like.
• 8:32
  The kingdom of God is like a guy. He's a farmer, and he plants a seed. And when he goes to sleep, the seed is growing. When he's awake, the seed is growing. And honestly, he, he doesn't really know how it works.
• 8:50
  I mean, he understands me and he understands a little bit. He understands you got to put it in good soil and you need a certain amount of water. Like he understands that, but like what's really happening there? I mean, these aren't, you know, twentieth, twenty first century biologists, you know, they don't know, they just know I put this thing in there, and in the right soil, and under the right conditions, something happens underground, and it turns into something you can eat. And so, that's what the Kingdom of God is like.
• 9:25
  And so, puts the seed in, it grows when he's asleep, grows when he's awake, and when the time comes, there's a huge crop, he gets out his Sickle. He gets out his sickle, and now he's got grain. That's what God's kingdom is like, guys.
• 9:41
  Abigail Boone: Such a disappointment.
• 9:43
  Charlie Loften: Thank you. Thank you for that. Jesus, I I got it. Got
• 9:47
  Abigail Boone: feel like there wouldn't have been applause.
• 9:50
  Charlie Loften: That was sarcastic applause. People would have listened to that and been like, not what we were
• 9:56
  Abigail Boone: hoping for. That is
• 9:57
  Charlie Loften: not that doesn't tell me anything. Yeah, that is that is not a helpful expansion of the definition of the word kingdom. It's not a helpful reframing of the word kingdom. It is just a story about how seeds grow. You didn't you got maybe you could have told us maybe you know how seeds grow.
• 10:20
  But all you told us is something mysterious that it's and it's kind of mysterious. We know a little bit but not very much. It's kind of mysterious, but when it works, it's really great.
• 10:35
  Abigail Boone: Maybe. Okay, this is feels well, definitely you saying that he had just shared the or around the time talked about the Parable of the Sowers.
• 10:44
  Charlie Loften: Yeah.
• 10:45
  Abigail Boone: This is quite vague in comparison.
• 10:49
  Charlie Loften: I feel like they're both equally vague. I mean, he would explain the first one is like King of the guys like farmer who throws a lot of seed and and good soil that works and bad soil. It doesn't. I mean, it's like, of course it is. I mean, it's a little bit you know, I'm a team of guys a little bit like, you know, you wake up and you ate breakfast, and then you gotta go to work.
• 11:13
  But then when works over, come home, have dinner with your family and go to sleep. Are you just you're just describing thing you're describing things we already know. And you're saying the kingdom of God is like that. But there isn't anything extraordinary and what you said, not mean, you know, it's not like Jack in the Beanstalk, right? I mean, it's like there's something extraordinary happens and it's like and some extraordinary part of it stands out and there are some things like that.
• 11:39
  Prodigal son was that way. Good Samaritan was that way where there were these kind of big obvious. Parts of the store that are like, yeah, what yeah, but this is just like very much plant to seed and really most of how it works is mysterious even to the farmer. But it happens. Like, I mean, I would have thought I mean, I would think any anybody, I would say 90% of
• 12:11
  Abigail Boone: the people bail and only probably don't even think about it again. Okay.
• 12:14
  Charlie Loften: Like, okay. So then like, but then again, this is goes back to Jesus's phrase, he who has to ear has ears, let him hear it. Like in order for you to get there. You are going to have to you have to work at it. And even here we are two thousand years later.
• 12:38
  Abigail Boone: We definitely have to
• 12:40
  Charlie Loften: work You're at going to have to work at it. Mean, I'm the one that more you've already worked reps the content for this podcast and a lot of our the shtick of our podcasts as you bouncing off of ideas that may be very, very new or fresh to you.
• 12:56
  Abigail Boone: Right?
• 12:57
  Charlie Loften: But if I were going if like, okay, I'm gonna get there, Abigail, like you you'll be like you we could not you wouldn't be able to get there. It's shockingly time frame of of normal podcast. Yeah, You would have to sit there and think about, okay, who's the farmer? What's the seed? What's the soil?
• 13:24
  And what is the mysterious processes by which it grows? Right? And so I would imagine Okay, let's just start with this. Okay? The kingdom is the seed.
• 13:42
  The kingdom is Okay, the kingdom is the seed. And it grows and it grows. Okay. Okay. The kingdom is the kingdom is going to grow.
• 13:52
  And how does it grow? There's no explanation. Undefined, methodical processes.
• 14:02
  Abigail Boone: But then why would he cut down the kingdom?
• 14:04
  Charlie Loften: Well, let's come back to So, right, as opposed to the kingdom of God is like a a king who got on a horse and got on a chariot, went out in a battle with his army, took down the opposing army, burned their cities to the ground and took all their treasures. Yeah, that is. Yeah, that's that's exactly that is exactly how kingdoms work. The kingdom of God is not a conquering one. It is not what it is and it is not.
• 14:45
  It does not become a kingdom by normal kingdom means. It is, in fact, a subtle, hidden and mysterious process. Hidden? Hidden. What happens to that seed you don't see?
• 15:04
  Right? Yeah. You don't see it. You don't see how it works. You only see the result of it.
• 15:09
  Abigail Boone: So the kingdom is not hidden, how it grows.
• 15:13
  Charlie Loften: Yeah, how how it, but you know, I think the kingdom starts as a seed and then turns into this luscious crop and how that happens is mysterious and hidden. The process by which the kingdom moves from a seed to a massive harvest is hidden and unknown. It just starts as a seed and then it becomes something that is so incredible that you can you get the sickle out and you and you gather it and you make food and you have everything that you ever want. And so the the kingdom then is the reason why you would get the sickle to it is because that that mean it's it is it is a bountiful it is a bountiful thing that you get to now have.
• 15:56
  Abigail Boone: Okay.
• 15:57
  Charlie Loften: And so it has different forms at this point. It's a seed, then it becomes crops and then it becomes bread for lots of people to eat that you can, you know, you can eat, you can sell. Mean, it's becoming this. But how did it become this?
• 16:14
  Abigail Boone: No one knows. That's just
• 16:15
  Charlie Loften: was so subtle, hidden, mysterious process, not by conquering heroes and battles. That's what you're expecting. But what God is actually going to do when He makes His kingdom is going to start small and the process by which it happens is going to be mysterious and hidden.
• 16:39
  Abigail Boone: Who's He talking to here?
• 16:41
  Charlie Loften: I would say this is crowd
• 16:44
  Abigail Boone: General Mass.
• 16:45
  Charlie Loften: But I would say more with a emphasis on his disciples.
• 16:50
  Abigail Boone: Okay,
• 16:50
  Charlie Loften: people who are people who are trying to hear.
• 16:53
  Abigail Boone: But
• 16:54
  Charlie Loften: again, he's just he's just throwing it out there. And I think it's like, I would imagine, like, in the first one, the parable of sower, he's like, okay, explain this to me. And Jesus did. But I would imagine for the rest of these, it would
• 17:06
  Abigail Boone: be like the next day be like, okay.
• 17:11
  Charlie Loften: So the kingdom, it's not like a like a conquering. It's not about vanquishing your opponent. It's something else. Yeah. Yeah.
• 17:29
  Good job.
• 17:31
  Abigail Boone: Know that I know how about about about about about about about all. But the thing.
• 17:37
  Charlie Loften: We don't know how it works. We just know that it will work.
• 17:42
  Abigail Boone: So do you think that one like a lot of times? I feel like people assume he used parables to make it like you have to be willing to find the meaning for it to be beneficial to you. Yep, but it also kind of feels like literary, literate wise, Larry, Larry, It does give it more context to understand. Like you just saying, it's not going to be a revolution is one thing. But to say it's going to be like a farmer is more dense and descriptive.
• 18:30
  Charlie Loften: Yeah, I mean, it's power. It's powerful. I mean, imagery is powerful, especially imagery that they could connect with a lot of farming. We've had we've had short period of time. We have we have we have worked a lot of fields.
• 18:45
  Have some crops we have. We've had bad things put in our crops, we've grown mustard seeds, which you don't want to grow. You know, mean, these are these are things that they would have understood. Understand farming. And so if all you said was this is how farming works.
• 19:03
  Yeah, that is you're right. You have accurately described farming. And you know, the kingdom of God is like farming in this way. You're like, in what way and so would have been powerful, it would have been relatable, but it would have also been mysterious and a little bit confusing and you still would have to work at it. Like they would have understood his stories a lot easier than we would have because they were more agrarian than we are.
• 19:35
  But I don't think that that doesn't get them necessarily a whole lot closer to how is the like that? And so even in a you take it into our intellect, we understand that God's kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. Well, then Abigail, then then we had how do you build the kingdom of God? You get out there and you do it. You go out there and you invite all your friends to church, and you read your Bible, and you do this, and you share the gospel with as many people as you can, and you go make you go make it happen.
• 20:10
  That's also not what he's saying. Mhmm. The real work of the kingdom is done in a mysterious way implied, God is the one that is doing it. It would have felt miraculous to them. The biological process by which a seed becomes a plant would have felt miraculous to them.
• 20:33
  And the fact that we have scientific explanations for it should not dim that. Right.
• 20:40
  Abigail Boone: That you can take
• 20:40
  Charlie Loften: a and little seed like put it in there and turn it and it will become a large quantity of food is still crazy. So crazy. It's so more right. It's so powerful. And and again, how does it really work?
• 20:53
  Don't I don't know. Again, and some scientists drawing it out on a chalkboard. Think Mrs.
• 21:00
  Abigail Boone: Something's animating it and we don't understand that.
• 21:04
  Charlie Loften: But okay, but how well this this isn't because there's so much of these elements in the soil and like,
• 21:15
  Abigail Boone: still crazy,
• 21:16
  Charlie Loften: but how but how they not gonna in a in a broader metaphysical context how and it's like it is it is it is a work that is happening and so you can you can you can you can put the metaphor a lot of different place. There's a seed that is planted in you that becomes something right? It's the kingdom that that comes out of you. You becoming a kingdom person is there's a seed that is planted, and there's a process, and then something great happens.
• 21:54
  Abigail Boone: I guess it also, to me agrarian or agriculture type things don't imply Swiftness,
• 22:03
  Charlie Loften: right?
• 22:04
  Abigail Boone: So maybe they would have been expect I guess with Revolutionary type talk they would have expected some swift overturning. But this is kind of being like, no, it's going to take a minute.
• 22:15
  Charlie Loften: Take a minute and it's not something that you have any real control over. Yeah, I think that speaks more to us than it would have to them, but it still would have spoken to them. This is outside of your control. The only thing that you can do really is plant it and tend to it a little But even your tending, there's a mystery between your tending of it and what's really happening underneath the soil. Right.
• 22:50
  You know that water helps, sun helps, we figure that out. Good soil matters, we understand all of these concepts and so there is a part to play, but I'm not doing enough to turn, I'm not turning a seed into a Yeah, that'd be crazy. I'm not. I'm not. I play a minimal role in it.
• 23:17
  The largest part of this role is something that is
• 23:22
  Abigail Boone: That's the mysterious part.
• 23:23
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. Is something that God must do. Like you said, it's going to take a minute, But when it happens, it's going to be bountiful. But I really do think and you kind of hinted at this, I mean, I think the beauty of this particular parable is just trying to imagine how it would have taken them, how they would have worked it out. Like, what's he getting at here?
• 23:54
  Yeah, I think he gave them enough of a decoder ring by explaining one of the parables to them to kind of get them to start to thinking. I think even the process by which they got from hearing Jesus say it to them beginning to understand it is an illustration of how the parable works. Because that's what Jesus is doing. Jesus planted a kingdom seed in them by telling them this parable. Yeah, and then it kind of sat in there and something happened.
• 24:29
  And now Peter is at Pentecost sharing the gospel with and thousands of people come to Christ and you know, I mean, there's there's a process by which Jesus kind of once it gets
• 24:40
  Abigail Boone: to that point, it's profitable and
• 24:42
  Charlie Loften: and over time, you know, started with what is he even on about? Yeah, But I really do. He's so awesome. I need to think about this and it's working in you. It happens at a church level.
• 25:00
  It happens at a capital C Church level. Kingdom itself, things that really matter have minimal involvement from us, maximum involvement from God, but when we do the small part that God has called us to, the planting and the tending, God does His thing, It is a the maximum maximum benefit
• 25:27
  Abigail Boone: on definitely in the content. I mean, I have multiple friends now that have attempted like a backyard garden and who they almost throw in the towel. I'm more of a plant gal. It became into my house. There's plants everywhere and I'm proud of them after like five years of growing and they're beautiful and huge, but I have friends that they're like I planted that like two weeks ago and it's still not any bigger.
• 25:51
  I'm like crazy. That's obvious, right? Well, like that's it makes it feel like it would still be relevant today of like it's so subtle and so mysterious the like you really don't eat it. It's better for you to look a year later than it is to look at it every day because you're going to see the true growth when you give it some time rather than a check it every morning and then look any bigger. Yeah, that's really hard to measure.
• 26:23
  Charlie Loften: And so really then becomes do I do I trust the process to
• 26:27
  Abigail Boone: stay with it?
• 26:28
  Charlie Loften: Am I patient enough or am I going to dig that thing out and check on it to see if it really is working or not?
• 26:36
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. Yeah.
• 26:37
  Charlie Loften: And so there I mean, yeah, do I do I trust the one who actually makes seeds grow to grow the seed? Or do I think that my management of it? I mean, there's so many illustrations like that. I said, you the more he would have gotten involved, the worse it would have gone. But if I plant, tend and trust, then at the right time, the one who actually is doing the work is going to provide all the food that I would ever need.
• 27:12
  Abigail Boone: And the fact that harvest did come right because there's people that could it's possible. I'm from Northeast Arkansas some ground just doesn't produce crop, right? And so the fact that like you're trusting the person who is abundantly more capable of doing the whole entire process that you're actually not capable of doing but also like I'm just trusting that there's going to be tons of outgrowth that comes from this.
• 27:43
  Charlie Loften: And so we analyze this parable to help us understand what the kingdom of God is. It is something that we have minimal involvement in. And it is something that mostly God is doing in ways that are mysterious to us. And so that's what we're that's what we're going to talk about. But in the process, we need to make sure that we understand that a big part of this parable is Jesus describing what the kingdom of God is not.
• 28:14
  Right? It is not conquering army revolutionary big and obvious when when somebody conquers and a kingdom or overthrows a tyrant to reestablish a kingdom. You're not ever like, wonder how that happened. I was there and we all saw it. Yeah, it was it was big.
• 28:38
  It was public. It was and it was
• 28:40
  Abigail Boone: which is really
• 28:41
  Charlie Loften: can be described. It was human powered.
• 28:44
  Abigail Boone: It's really interesting to me or funny almost to me that they assumed they would be able to take down Rome, like of all empires of all time, right? That's a pretty hefty one to think that you could take down.
• 28:58
  Charlie Loften: Well, they had actually had a measure of success around seventy AD. Yeah. And then immediately got put down and swatted back there. All their temple treasures were taken. The temple has never been rebuilt and it was the slaves and the, the treasures from that Rome reconquering them in seventy AD that built the Colosseum.
• 29:19
  Fun fact. Not fun fact. Interesting
• 29:21
  Abigail Boone: fact. Interesting fact.
• 29:24
  Charlie Loften: Yeah. So they they did have a mildly successful rebellion about forty years after Jesus death.
• 29:30
  Abigail Boone: That just
• 29:30
  Charlie Loften: came in, put it down, took all their money, took 50,000 slaves, they built the Colosseum on that.
• 29:36
  Abigail Boone: That just would have just been unbelievably humbling of like, think you can take down us, but they're expectant of that coming and then to hear this plan.
• 29:44
  Charlie Loften: If it's driven by the Messiah, yeah, and the power of God. We've got we got all these stories. Yeah. How do you know? We've seen Babylon fall.
• 29:55
  We've seen these coming. We've seen there's all these stories in Kings and Chronicles and in the prophets of God's kind of just doing crazy supernatural things to allow them to win battles of crazy odds. Mean, start with David and Goliath and just keep going. Right? And it's just like, yeah, I mean, it was it was it was crazy.
• 30:18
  But if you're the son of God here to do that, it's a trust in the promise. And Jesus, like, oh, yeah, you actually misunderstood the concept. And he's going to spend three years trying to help them undo that to varying degrees of success, but he's really it doesn't really click with them all.
• 30:42
  Abigail Boone: He
• 30:42
  Charlie Loften: had until the resurrection
• 30:43
  Abigail Boone: an unreal amount of patience.
• 31:00
  Charlie Loften: Yeah, you will.
• 31:02
  Abigail Boone: I just have my done. My babies are angels.
• 31:07
  Charlie Loften: Keep talking. By the time we get to the one thousandth episode of the podcast,
• 31:10
  Abigail Boone: we'll see more pressure
• 31:12
  Charlie Loften: with your little precious baby nieces. Yeah. And so I think, know, so he's he's accomplishing something very specific for them theologically and practically about who the Messiah is, what the kingdom is, what God wants from them. He's doing something very specific for them. But then we take it into our time.
• 31:32
  We take that those same truths and put them to us. The things that really, really matter that advance God's kingdom have a it's not nothing from us. I mean, there is something that is asked of us to plant seeds and to tend to gardens. But really, it is mostly about trusting the God who who really makes things happen. And at the right time will be the time for harvest.
• 32:00
  Yeah. And so you can think of that in terms of people in your life that you hope would make a change, people that you would hope that would find faith or a church that you're involved in that you're hoping is going to grow or whatever, or just like a small group or whatever. It's somebody that you're loving on, right? I mean, just whatever it is that you're involved in, I mean, you don't just you know, if God wants that seed in the ground, I guess He'll put it in there. I mean, I got a bag of seeds
• 32:29
  Abigail Boone: in there, right?
• 32:30
  Charlie Loften: I mean, you know, well, I'm just going to you know, it's a different parable to say I'm just going to throw these seeds everywhere and see what happens. This is a very specific parable. This is about a very meticulous farmer who understands what he can do, puts the seed where it's supposed to go and then trust God to do the rest. And I think there is a I mean, just you said, I think that I think even even there's a powerful metaphor in there for for kids.
• 32:56
  Abigail Boone: You
• 32:57
  Charlie Loften: know, there's things that I can do to cultivate the hearts of my kids. But really, the real work is going to be mysterious, hidden and something that God does. But I can love my kids. I can pray for them. There are things that I can do.
• 33:15
  But what really happens, happens underneath the surface where only God's eyes see what's happening. Right. So it's a very subtle simple one, but I think it is it is one of the more powerful ones. Okay, so
• 33:30
  Abigail Boone: I like it.
• 33:31
  Charlie Loften: Right. And we're at 1919.
• 33:35
  Abigail Boone: Should we celebrate for the twentieth?
• 33:37
  Charlie Loften: We're just cooking. Cooking. We should have done that with that theology. How many episodes was the systematic
• 33:43
  Abigail Boone: theology Like a year and a half it felt like.
• 33:45
  Charlie Loften: Yeah, mean, that was easily set. At least 70.
• 33:47
  Abigail Boone: It was so much.
• 33:49
  Charlie Loften: You kept wanting to do Q and As. That's one unique thing about this.
• 33:53
  Abigail Boone: There's not many Q and
• 33:54
  Charlie Loften: A because of the format is this kind self contained? Yes, the Q and A's happen in it.
• 34:00
  Abigail Boone: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. But giving an overarching Q and A, it would be the same questions every time.
• 34:07
  Charlie Loften: Well, thank you as always for being the Mix Master. Look at, look at, look at. And all the work that you do in Mix Mastering this when we're done. Thank you guys for joining us. And we'd love to see you back next week.
• 34:19
  And as always, we'd love to help you connect you at our church. You can go to The Grove Church Dot Org, find all the information there about our services, forms you can fill out to kind of let us know that you're listening, any questions you have. We'd love to connect with you in any way that you would like, and would love to see you back again next week, and we'll see you soon. Thank you for listening to the Cultivate Podcast. Our hope is that you are taking steps to go deeper in your faith, that you're asking big questions, and you're looking resource for you through our podcast and any other way that we can help you.
• 34:55
  You can find all our episodes anywhere that you can find podcasts, including YouTube. And again, thank you so much for joining us.