Speaker 1: Hey, everybody.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Well, we're talking about
Speaker 2: your money.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: We're continuing a powerful series called Financial Fit. Rick is
Speaker 2: opening God's Word and showing us how to manage what
Speaker 2: we've been given with wisdom, faith, and purpose. And I
Speaker 2: know if you apply these biblical principles, you'll start to
Speaker 2: experience true financial freedom and lasting peace. Well, what do
Speaker 2: you say we wrap it up with the final part
Speaker 2: of a message called The Laws of Sowing and Reaping?
Speaker 1: Now, here's the next law, number six. I always reap
Speaker 1: more than I sow. This is always true for good
Speaker 1: or for bad, positively or negatively in your life. You
Speaker 1: will always reap more than you sow. This is the
Speaker 1: principle of multiplication. If I take one kernel of corn
Speaker 1: and I plant that one kernel of corn in the ground,
Speaker 1: I don't get one kernel of corn back. I get
Speaker 1: a corn stalk. And on that corn stalk, I get
Speaker 1: multiple ears and on each of those ears I get
Speaker 1: hundreds of kernels. This is the exponential power of the
Speaker 1: seed principle that God has established the universe to handle.
Speaker 1: That you always get more out of it than you
Speaker 1: put into it because what you sow you're gonna reap
Speaker 1: but you always end up reaping more. Now in the
Speaker 1: parable of the soils, Jesus points this out. And in
Speaker 1: Mark chapter four, Verse eight, he says, some seed fell
Speaker 1: on good soil and it came up and it grew
Speaker 1: and it produced a crop, multiplying 30, 60, and even
Speaker 1: 100 times. And he's saying here, you know, not all
Speaker 1: your plants bear the same fruit. Some of them are
Speaker 1: 30-fold increase and some are a 60-fold increase, some a
Speaker 1: 100-fold increase. But it's true in any area of your life.
Speaker 1: And if you think that if you go out and
Speaker 1: you do one gossip, you're gonna get one gossip back,
Speaker 1: you're kidding yourself. You go out and gossip somebody, you're
Speaker 1: now in the chain. You're now in the gossip chain,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna get more against you than you put out.
Speaker 1: It's why I never, never attack back on my attackers. Why?
Speaker 1: I don't wanna get caught in the chain. So no
Speaker 1: matter what anybody says to me, I don't want to
Speaker 1: say anything bad back then, because if I do, I
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen. I'm going to reap more
Speaker 1: than I sowed. I'm not about to let that one happen.
Speaker 1: What I want to do is the exact opposite. I
Speaker 1: want to bless them. I want to pray for them.
Speaker 1: The Bible says pray for those who persecute you. Bless
Speaker 1: those who criticize you. Love your enemies. Why? Because that's
Speaker 1: what I want back. I want love back. I want
Speaker 1: blessing back. And so whatever you give out, it's not
Speaker 1: one for one. And it works positively or negatively in
Speaker 1: your life. Now here's the next principle, number seven. I
Speaker 1: can increase my harvest by planting more seed. I can
Speaker 1: increase my harvest by planting more seeds. more seed. This
Speaker 1: is the law of proportion, that we always reap in
Speaker 1: proportion to what we sow. And if I sow a
Speaker 1: bunch of seed, I'm gonna get a bunch of crops.
Speaker 1: If I sow a little seed, I get a little crop.
Speaker 1: If I sow no seed, I get no crop. Now
Speaker 1: this is true in giving, it's true in tithing, it's
Speaker 1: true in energy expenditure, it's true in talent, it's true
Speaker 1: in intelligence, it's true in every area of your life,
Speaker 1: that I can increase my harvest by planting more seed.
Speaker 1: Second Corinthians chapter nine says this. Now remember this. Whoever
Speaker 1: sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows generously
Speaker 1: will also reap generously. In other words, that's proportion. Now,
Speaker 1: each one should give what he has decided in his
Speaker 1: heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God
Speaker 1: loves a cheerful giver. Now, this particular passage happens to
Speaker 1: be talking about money as a seed. It's more than
Speaker 1: just money. But in here, it's talking about giving, and
Speaker 1: it's basically saying you can't outgive God. And I've told
Speaker 1: you my story on that many times. I don't have
Speaker 1: to cover that one again. You cannot outgive God. You
Speaker 1: play a game with God, God says, Rick, you give
Speaker 1: to me and I'll give to you and we'll see
Speaker 1: who wins. And the more you sow, the more you're blessed,
Speaker 1: the more you reap. And God loves a cheerful giver.
Speaker 1: I think I've told you this before, the Greek word
Speaker 1: there for cheerful is the word hilarious in Greek. We
Speaker 1: get the word hilarious from. Why? Because God loves your
Speaker 1: heart attitude. God doesn't need your money. He wants what
Speaker 1: it represents, your heart, your attitude. Now, What is a seed?
Speaker 1: If I can plant more seed and get more harvest,
Speaker 1: what is a seed? A seed is anything that I
Speaker 1: value that I give it away. If I give wisdom away,
Speaker 1: then I get more wisdom back. If I give love away,
Speaker 1: I get more love back. If I give my energy away,
Speaker 1: I get more energy back. If I give my money away,
Speaker 1: God makes sure I get more back. If I give
Speaker 1: my time away, I get more back. People say, I
Speaker 1: don't have time to help other people. That's your problem.
Speaker 1: Whatever you need more of, you need to give away.
Speaker 1: You say, I don't have enough time to give what
Speaker 1: I need to. Give some of it away. Start serving
Speaker 1: unselfishly in some area where you're not getting paid back.
Speaker 1: It's just a free for all free gift of your time.
Speaker 1: A free gift of your energy. a free gift of
Speaker 1: your wisdom, and you take on a younger person and
Speaker 1: you start to mentor them, and you don't have time
Speaker 1: to do that, but you do it because what you give,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get back. The seed is anything that I sow,
Speaker 1: that I give away, I let go of instead of
Speaker 1: holding it onto myself. Now this law of generosity, as
Speaker 1: I said earlier, it works for anybody. It even works
Speaker 1: for unbelievers. That's why a lot of businessmen have actually
Speaker 1: used the principles of the Bible who are not believers
Speaker 1: in Jesus Christ. But if you run your business with
Speaker 1: integrity and with generosity and with humility and on the
Speaker 1: laws of the harvest, you're gonna be blessed. See, the
Speaker 1: law of gravity doesn't just work for Christians. It works
Speaker 1: for everybody. And the law of magnetism doesn't just work
Speaker 1: for believers, it works for everybody. And the laws of
Speaker 1: the harvest, the laws of sowing and reaping work for anybody,
Speaker 1: whether they're a believer or not. And you can actually
Speaker 1: see them in some self-help books by people who have
Speaker 1: no interest in God. Here's the general principle, Proverbs 11, 24.
Speaker 1: I love this, the message paraphrase. The world of the
Speaker 1: generous gets larger and larger, but the world of the
Speaker 1: stingy gets smaller and smaller. And we'll cover that when
Speaker 1: we get to the laws of investing. But number eight,
Speaker 1: number eight, is it's time to start planting now. The
Speaker 1: time to start planting is now. It all starts as
Speaker 1: a seed, nothing happens until the seed's planted. Whatever I
Speaker 1: sow is what I'm gonna reap. I'm always gonna reap
Speaker 1: more than I sow and I can increase the harvest
Speaker 1: by planting more seed, but the time to plant is now.
Speaker 1: You don't wait for a better time. The sooner, the better.
Speaker 1: I talk to people all the time who think, one
Speaker 1: of these days, I'm going to, and then they have
Speaker 1: their idea. When I retire one day, or when I
Speaker 1: get to a certain economic level, then I'm gonna start giving.
Speaker 1: Or when I, this happens, then I'm going to, and
Speaker 1: you have, one of these days is none of these days.
Speaker 1: The point is, you don't wait for things to get better.
Speaker 1: You start planning now, why? Because the sooner you plant,
Speaker 1: the longer you're gonna have the harvest in the rest
Speaker 1: of your life. I've mentioned this in every session in
Speaker 1: this series on financial fitness. The law of compounding interest
Speaker 1: is the single most powerful force on the planet. That
Speaker 1: mathematical law of compounding interest. And if you start saving
Speaker 1: as a young person, and you put little by little away,
Speaker 1: it multiplies, and by the time you get out there,
Speaker 1: it's really big. It's small at the start, but it
Speaker 1: starts a J curve. And if the sooner you start
Speaker 1: planting seeds, the sooner you're gonna start reaping the harvest.
Speaker 1: Now notice this verse, what Solomon said, Ecclesiastes chapter 11.
Speaker 1: Those who wait for perfect weather will never plant seeds.
Speaker 1: And those who look at every cloud, like the stock
Speaker 1: market report, will never reap a harvest. Why? Because perfection
Speaker 1: paralyzes potential. How many of you would agree, if you
Speaker 1: wait for perfect conditions, you never get anything done? It's obvious.
Speaker 1: It's obvious. So whatever you're gonna start doing, start doing
Speaker 1: it now. Now's when you need help. Start planting now.
Speaker 1: Look at the next verse. Ecclesiastes 11, six. Do your
Speaker 1: planting in the morning. Oh, and in the evening too.
Speaker 1: Because you never know whether it will all grow well
Speaker 1: or whether one planting will do better than the others.
Speaker 1: Now we're gonna come back in a future session and
Speaker 1: deal with this verse again in the laws of investing.
Speaker 1: But he said you should be planting all the time,
Speaker 1: everywhere you go, every day. Think of what seeds am
Speaker 1: I gonna plant today? What seeds of love? What seeds
Speaker 1: of grace? What seeds of money? What seeds of energy?
Speaker 1: What seeds of wisdom? How can I plant in other
Speaker 1: people's lives You get up every day and just think,
Speaker 1: I'm a farmer today. And I'm gonna be a farmer
Speaker 1: at the grocery store store, and I'm gonna be a
Speaker 1: farmer at work, and I'm gonna be a farmer at school,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna plant good seeds everywhere, because if I
Speaker 1: plant them all, some of that stuff's gonna pop up
Speaker 1: and crop in 30-fold. Look at the next verse, 2
Speaker 1: Corinthians 9, verse 10. who supplies seed to the farmer
Speaker 1: and bread to eat. By the way, where's all the
Speaker 1: seed come from? It comes from God. The seed that
Speaker 1: the farmer has comes from God. For God who supplies
Speaker 1: seed to the farmer and bread to eat will give
Speaker 1: you more and more seed. Give you more and more
Speaker 1: seed to plant and will make it grow so that
Speaker 1: you can give away more and more fruit from your harvest.
Speaker 1: Now this verse is a promise about being generous with money.
Speaker 1: But it applies more than to just money. The more
Speaker 1: you give away, the more you're gonna get back. This
Speaker 1: is the law of the harvest. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that seeds are, are our words. You need to
Speaker 1: start thinking of your words as seeds. And when you
Speaker 1: say words, you plant them in the minds of your children.
Speaker 1: You plant them in the minds of your friends. You
Speaker 1: plant them in the minds of your spouse. And they
Speaker 1: are going to grow and they are going to bear fruit.
Speaker 1: And what you sow, you're going to reap. So let
Speaker 1: me ask you, are you really watching your words? You
Speaker 1: better say them wisely because every word is a seed.
Speaker 1: And so I have to ask myself, am I sowing
Speaker 1: seeds of trust or distrust when I speak? Am I
Speaker 1: sowing words of kindness or am I sowing words of meanness?
Speaker 1: Anger and apathy? Am I sowing words that build up
Speaker 1: or am I planting words that tear down? Why, why
Speaker 1: is that important? Because I will reap what I sow
Speaker 1: and so will you. Now it's interesting that the Bible
Speaker 1: says that having spiritual conversations with other people, is planting seeds.
Speaker 1: The Bible calls it that. That when you share your
Speaker 1: faith with an unbeliever, when you talk to your neighbor,
Speaker 1: when you talk to a friend, when you talk to
Speaker 1: somebody at work about the Lord, every time you share
Speaker 1: your faith, God says, that's planting a seed, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna bear fruit from it. God calls this spiritual seed planting,
Speaker 1: spiritual sowing. There are many, many scriptures that talk about
Speaker 1: the fact that the more I talk to other people
Speaker 1: about Jesus, the more seeds I am planting and the
Speaker 1: more harvest I'm gonna have. Look at this verse on
Speaker 1: the screen. Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 9 11.
Speaker 1: Reaping a material harvest is appropriate if we have sown
Speaker 1: spiritual seed among you. He's making this point loud and clear.
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna reap a benefit from talking to other
Speaker 1: people about the Lord. Now there's one other principle, and
Speaker 1: it is this. To reap the harvest, I must be
Speaker 1: patient and not give up. To reap the harvest that
Speaker 1: God wants me to have, I must be patient and
Speaker 1: not give up. Why? Because remember, there's always a delay
Speaker 1: between sowing and reaping. You plant in one season and
Speaker 1: you harvest in another. The principle that we're talking about today, friends,
Speaker 1: is a kingdom principle. It's one of the principles that
Speaker 1: the kingdom of God operates on. Jesus said it like
Speaker 1: this in Mark chapter 4. This is what the kingdom
Speaker 1: of God is like. He said, this is what the
Speaker 1: kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on
Speaker 1: the ground. And night and day, whether he's sleeping or
Speaker 1: he gets up, the seed sprouts and grows. It grows.
Speaker 1: He says, you know what, regardless of what he's doing,
Speaker 1: he's planted it, now it's still growing, he's not even there,
Speaker 1: though he doesn't know how. He can't even figure it out.
Speaker 1: All by itself, the soil produces grain. First the stalk,
Speaker 1: then the head, then the full kernel in the head.
Speaker 1: And what's he saying there? He's saying the results will come,
Speaker 1: and they will come slowly, and they will come systematically,
Speaker 1: and they will come in a process. I don't have
Speaker 1: time to unpack all the meaning of this verse, but
Speaker 1: he is saying it takes time. And because it takes time,
Speaker 1: look at the next verse. We must not become tired
Speaker 1: of doing good. We will reap a harvest at the
Speaker 1: right time if we do not give up. Now I
Speaker 1: want you to circle the word will. We will reap
Speaker 1: a harvest, that's a promise. Not we might, not we shall,
Speaker 1: not we hope, not we wish. We will reap a
Speaker 1: harvest at the right time, if we do not give up.
Speaker 1: You gotta hang on, and while you're waiting, God is working. Now,
Speaker 1: as your pastor, who loves you, let me just say
Speaker 1: this to you heart to heart. You gotta forget about
Speaker 1: last year's crop failure. Because there's nothing you can do
Speaker 1: about it. You've had many years of crop failure in
Speaker 1: your life. You have wasted years, and so have I.
Speaker 1: You have wasted words, and so have I. You have
Speaker 1: wasted money, and so have I. You have wasted relationships,
Speaker 1: and so have I. You have wasted goodwill in people's lives,
Speaker 1: and so have I. And you can't do anything about
Speaker 1: the crop failures of the past. You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: learn to live with the consequences of your failures. And
Speaker 1: there are consequences to everything. But what you've gotta do
Speaker 1: is you've gotta start focusing on the long-term harvest in
Speaker 1: your life, not the short-term pleasure. The long-term harvest. I
Speaker 1: can help you change by applying the scriptures to your life,
Speaker 1: but you can't do it overnight. You didn't get the
Speaker 1: way you got financially overnight. You took years getting messed up.
Speaker 1: And it's gonna take a while getting it undone. Now
Speaker 1: some of you, your finances are in such a mess,
Speaker 1: it's probably brought tears to your eyes. And you could probably,
Speaker 1: if you were honest, admit that you have sat with
Speaker 1: your wife or your husband and teared up a little
Speaker 1: bit and thought, how are we gonna make this? We
Speaker 1: are not making it. In fact, we're going in reverse.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's getting worse. We're worse off than we
Speaker 1: were a year ago, and it's brought some grief. Well
Speaker 1: let me give you a verse and give you a promise.
Speaker 1: Psalm 126. Let those grief tears water the seeds you
Speaker 1: plant now. Those who plant in tears, Psalm 126, those
Speaker 1: who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy.
Speaker 1: They weep as they go out to plant their seed,
Speaker 1: but they sing as they return with the harvest. What
Speaker 1: loss has you grieving? What lack has you grieving? What
Speaker 1: need have you been grieving over? Maybe you lost your job.
Speaker 1: Maybe you lost a loved one. Maybe you lost your savings.
Speaker 1: Maybe you lost half of your retirement in the last
Speaker 1: couple years. Maybe you lost your dream. Maybe you lost
Speaker 1: your marriage. Maybe you lost your health. Mourning is okay.
Speaker 1: Moaning is not. Big difference. Mourning is okay. Grief is
Speaker 1: a legitimate response to loss. Grief is good. Jesus said,
Speaker 1: blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.
Speaker 1: If you let your mourning, your grief, turn you to God,
Speaker 1: it's a good thing. Moaning is not. What's moaning? It's
Speaker 1: when you're griping and you're whining and you're complaining to
Speaker 1: God all the time, Lord, I don't have work, I
Speaker 1: don't have money, I don't, and God's saying, are you
Speaker 1: planting any seeds? Or are you just gonna complain? What
Speaker 1: are you waiting on? You're not waiting on me. You
Speaker 1: can pray all you want. You need to go plant
Speaker 1: some seeds. Whatever you need more of, you need to
Speaker 1: give away. Let's bow our heads. I want you to
Speaker 1: pray this prayer in your heart. Dear God, I have
Speaker 1: learned some new things about how the universe operates today.
Speaker 1: I realize that everything starts as a seed. It may
Speaker 1: be a word, it may be a seed of money,
Speaker 1: it may be a seed of energy, a seed of reputation,
Speaker 1: a seed of wisdom, but nothing happens until that seed
Speaker 1: is planted. unless the grain is buried in the ground,
Speaker 1: it cannot reproduce. I realize that whatever I sow is
Speaker 1: what I will reap, and I've often sowed one thing
Speaker 1: and wanted to reap the opposite, and that's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: I've given out negative and wanted positive. That's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Today I realize that I'm not the only sower and
Speaker 1: that I have been reaping both blessings and problems from
Speaker 1: people who went before me and people who are around me.
Speaker 1: But I can make a choice. and I can choose
Speaker 1: to plant good seed. Forgive me for all the times
Speaker 1: I've been in a hurry. Help me to realize and
Speaker 1: remember that I reap in a different season than I sow,
Speaker 1: that there's a time to plant and there's a time
Speaker 1: to harvest and that while I'm waiting, you're working. Help
Speaker 1: me to remember when I start to speak that I'm
Speaker 1: always gonna reap more than I sow. And make sure
Speaker 1: that it's good seed that comes out of my mouth.
Speaker 1: Help me to realize that I can increase my harvest
Speaker 1: by planting more seed. Lord, I want to learn to
Speaker 1: be financially generous more every year of my life. I
Speaker 1: want to give away more every year. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be stingy. I want to be generous. That's scary
Speaker 1: to me. But I want to learn to trust you.
Speaker 1: And I have to admit, Lord, that I have been
Speaker 1: too afraid to tithe. And I've been too afraid to
Speaker 1: give away my love to some people. And I've been
Speaker 1: too afraid to show who I really am to others.
Speaker 1: Help me to realize that the time to start planting
Speaker 1: is right now. There are never gonna be any perfect conditions.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start planting today. And I want to plant
Speaker 1: in the morning and the evening and every day I
Speaker 1: want to look as I go out to work or
Speaker 1: to school and I just want to be a seed
Speaker 1: planter everywhere I go. While I'm waiting, help me to
Speaker 1: be patient and not give up. To claim the promise
Speaker 1: that we must not become tired of doing good but
Speaker 1: we will reap a harvest at the right time if
Speaker 1: we do not give up. Jesus Christ, I need you
Speaker 1: to be the manager of my life, finances, and everything else.
Speaker 1: And I want to love you and trust you, and
Speaker 1: I want to obey your laws even when I don't
Speaker 1: understand them. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. You know,
Speaker 1: if you just prayed that prayer for the very first time,
Speaker 1: or you just recommitted your life to Jesus again today,
Speaker 1: would you let me know about it? There's something real
Speaker 1: about sharing your commitment. So write me, Rick, at PastorRick.com
Speaker 1: and say, Rick, I prayed that prayer of commitment. I
Speaker 1: gave my life to Christ. And I'll send you some
Speaker 1: material that'll help you on your journey with Jesus. And
Speaker 1: I'll also pray for you. God bless you.
Speaker 2: Wow, some powerful words from Pastor Rick today. And now
Speaker 2: this is really one of my favorite parts of the broadcast.
Speaker 2: This is letters from our listeners. And now here's Rick.
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Today I want to read part of a
Speaker 1: letter that I received from June, who is a prisoner
Speaker 1: that was given a second chance by God. He wrote this.
Speaker 1: I'm a prisoner here in the National Penitentiary serving my sentence.
Speaker 1: I came to know the Lord inside myself 13 years ago.
Speaker 1: And now I'm serving the Lord as an inmate pastor. Rick,
Speaker 1: I always use your Daily Hope preaching and devotionals in
Speaker 1: sharing the words of God to my fellow prisoners. And
Speaker 1: I see people come to the Lord in many, many ways.
Speaker 1: You know, before I was in prison and I came
Speaker 1: to know the Lord, I was a high-ranking police officer.
Speaker 1: And I was about to commit suicide because of the
Speaker 1: numerous charges filed against me. But when God saved me
Speaker 1: physically and spiritually, my journey in prison became the most
Speaker 1: wonderful vessel used by God to manifest his love to me.
Speaker 1: He never leaves me nor forsakes me and may his
Speaker 1: name always be glorified. Thank you, Pastor Rick. You're an
Speaker 1: inspiration and encouragement to all of us. Well, June, it's
Speaker 1: amazing to know your story and to hear that you're
Speaker 1: using The Daily Hope message is to teach your fellow
Speaker 1: inmates about Jesus Christ. That is fantastic. I couldn't be
Speaker 1: more happy. They need to hear that God gives second chances.
Speaker 1: They need to hear that he still has a plan
Speaker 1: and purpose for their lives, even though they're in prison.
Speaker 1: Your story is a great reminder that any one of
Speaker 1: us can use what we learn through Daily Hope, podcasts, devotionals,
Speaker 1: and we can take these things and teach others about
Speaker 1: God's grace and forgiveness. and unconditional love. Keep it up,
Speaker 1: my friend. God bless you.
Speaker 2: You know, I share Pastor Rick's Daily Hope all the time.
Speaker 2: And whether it's a friend or someone you meet in
Speaker 2: a restaurant, everyone needs hope and encouragement from the Bible
Speaker 2: every day. So tell the people you know and love
Speaker 2: about Daily Hope. Be sure to join us next time
Speaker 2: as we look into God's.
Speaker 1: Word for our daily hope.
Speaker 2: This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and
Speaker 2: your generous financial support.
Speaker 1: Thank you.