Seeds: Every Family Tree Begins Somewhere // Roots & Soil
Seeds: Every Family Tree Begins Somewhere // Roots & Soil
Pastor Charlie Weir
Your family heritage matters: it informs and influences but it doesn’t determine… for the good or the bad. Your right now family tree is connected to your right now thinking, decisions, choices and actions.
The original “life-giving” passage.
Genesis 1:28-29 (NIV) “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.”
The creation account establishes the following 3 things.
• Our origin is divine because we were created by God.
• Our capacity is holy because we were created for God.
• Our life carries life because we were designed with that purpose.
Our seed has a divine origin, with a holy capacity and a life-giving purpose!
Our Response to the Good News?
• Own our origin.
• Offer ourselves to your Originator.
• Produce life.
John 12:24 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
Nothing has the power to cancel out or diminish your divine origin, your holy capacity or your life-giving purpose!
You were created with…
• a mind to know God.
• emotions to experience God.
• a will to obey God.
Roots have 2 main functions
1) Anchor
2) Absorption
Slide Roots as Anchor Colossians 2:6-7 6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
Slide Roots as Anchor Colossians 2:8-10 8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. 9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.
Slide Roots as Anchor Colossians 2:11-15 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self-ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Roots are for Absorption
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 (NIV) That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
18 “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 20 The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 22 The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. 23 But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
Soil #1 Path Soil
Soil #2 Shallow Soil
Soil #3 Thorny Soil
Soil #4 Good Soil
Not all soil produces the same but all good soil produces.
Break up hard soil.
2 Chronicles 7:14 14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Excavate shallow soil.
Weed thorny soil.
Good soil is vulnerable soil, it’s deep soil, it’s tilled soil.
You have the power to cultivate your own soil. Don’t allow anything or anyone determine the condition of your soil.
• What encouragement did you receive?
• What challenge did you accept?
• What revelation are you grappling with?
• You can’t change your family history but you can change your family’s present and future.
• You can’t change the soil you were planted in but you can change the composition of the soil you are in right now.
• You can’t change your original root structure but you can put down new roots.