Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome to the Crema Chaj podcast.
[00:00:07] Great.
[00:00:09] Take a seat.
[00:00:10] Thank you.
[00:00:12] Well, Happy New year to you.
[00:00:16] 2026.
[00:00:19] Here we go.
[00:00:23] If you were here the end of last year, I said, as we go into this new year, I want to talk to you a little bit about sewing and reaping.
[00:00:31] We looked last term, we looked at walking in the ways of God. And the astute among you will know that I missed one of the commandments.
[00:00:39] I didn't quite get to the last one. Do not covet. But don't worry too much. We'll pick it up this term because actually starting to get an understanding on sowing and reaping and not coveting, but asking and receiving is a whole part of what we want to talk about.
[00:00:56] But first, I want you to understand that the Lord is firstly the great Sower.
[00:01:03] He sets the example.
[00:01:05] When. When we come to Jesus, we are. We are filled with the Holy Spirit.
[00:01:11] We. We talk about inviting him in. I mean, we open the door and he floods in with his. With his love. And he comes and dwells with us. He doesn't visit. He comes and makes his home in us. He stays so that we can know God.
[00:01:28] But God also sows His Word.
[00:01:31] So he comes and makes his holiness by His Spirit, but He sows His Word. And he's a liberal sower.
[00:01:39] Jesus talks about scattering the seed. And for us, that seems really quite wasteful. You know, we like to buy a little packet of seed, you know, and you've got your nice flower, you know exactly what it's going to grow into. That's not the picture at all. The picture here is just throwing seed everywhere. Everywhere. Why? Because there is an abundance in heaven.
[00:02:01] There is never a lack in heaven. So when Jesus is talking about sowing, he's throwing the seed and he says that some of it falls in between the fields, some of it on the wayside, some of it amongst rocks, even thorns.
[00:02:15] But he does this for a reason.
[00:02:19] Zechariah 4 says, There are the eyes of the Lord which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth.
[00:02:27] That the Lord is looking throughout the whole earth. He's walking through the earth, looking for what? I think he's looking for receptive hearts.
[00:02:38] I think he's looking for good soil, men and women who will believe His Word, who will welcome His Word in so that he can accomplish his purposes. You know. How does he sow? Well, I think sometimes through prophecy, prophets, prophesy, and the Word is sown in our lives. I think sometimes through testimony, people give a testimony and the word is sown. Sometimes through reading the Scriptures and the word is sown. You know, how often have you heard a prophecy and you wished it was for you? You heard, you know, the prophets here and they stand someone up and they start prophesying all this, and you go, it's not fair.
[00:03:21] That should be me. Well, it can be.
[00:03:24] You see, the prophet may be speaking to an individual, but the Word has been released. And you can grab it. You can grab it. And if you grab it with faith and it enters your heart, it can be your word.
[00:03:38] You see, that person, just because they stood up, might not receive the word. Wow. There's plenty of examples of that in the Bible.
[00:03:47] But because you heard it and you took it, it's yours. So you treasure it and you nurture it. It grows. Or you hear a testimony of a healing or provision, and you go, that's what I need.
[00:03:58] So you reach out and you take the word and it falls on good soil of faith. Or you're reading through your Bible, Rachel was just doing it, and you come across a promise of God, I that's what I need. And the Holy Spirit says, do you want it?
[00:04:16] Is that the one you want?
[00:04:18] Yes.
[00:04:19] And because it falls on a heart full of faith, the seed settles and it falls upon good soil.
[00:04:28] So grab your Bibles.
[00:04:30] If you've been around church any amount of time, you'll know this story. Why don't you stand again? We're going to read from Matthew's Gospel. This is Matthew, chapter 13.
[00:04:40] This is the parable of the sower.
[00:04:42] On the same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea, and a great multitude were gathered together to him, so that he got into a boat and sat, and the whole multitude stood on the shore.
[00:04:54] Then he spoke many things to them in parables, saying, behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them. And some fell on stony places where they did not have much earth. And they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, they were scorched. And because they had no root, they withered away.
[00:05:20] And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop some 100 fold, some 60, some 30. He who has ears, let him hear, and then jump down to verse 18.
[00:05:36] Therefore hear the parable of the sower.
[00:05:39] When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, then the Wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received the seed by the wayside.
[00:05:53] But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the Word and immediately receives it with joy, yet has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the Word, immediately he stumbles.
[00:06:12] Now, when he who received the seed among the thorns is he who hears the Word. And the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received the seed on good ground is he who hears the Word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces some 100 fold. Some 60, some 30.
[00:06:37] Amen. Take a seat.
[00:06:41] Okay, we're going to move quick.
[00:06:44] Juliet, my wife Juliet is a great cook. If you've ever stumbled across her cakes, you would know this church was built upon the word of God and. And white chocolate cheesecake. Okay. And Joel is getting more excited than normal because Joel has been around here right from when we started the church. And he would come when we were planting the church. He would come to every welcome evening we did because of the white chocolate cheesecake. It's hard to believe he's as skinny as he is, but he would. All the way he got in was he would always bring someone. He would just whenever he knew, he would find someone new and say, you need to come, you need to come. But it was actually for the white chocolate cheesecake. Anyway, so Juliet is a great cook, but every now and again, things go wrong. You know, I don't fully understand it, but just before Christmas, we had a baking emergency and she was cooking and she used self raising flour instead of plain flour. I mean, who cares? Who knew? But apparently that's really bad.
[00:07:50] Okay, so it didn't look how she'd hoped. Obviously it had raised and not. I don't know.
[00:07:56] And so we had to quickly go out and get some more stuff from the shops because it didn't look like it was supposed to. All right. Why do I tell you that story? I think sometimes in our Christian lives, there's a missing ingredient. There's the wrong ingredient. Sometimes that makes things not work quite how we think they should work. And the missing ingredient is. Is one that we don't always talk a lot about in church, but it's surrender.
[00:08:29] It's obedience.
[00:08:32] Jesus says, pick up your cross and follow me.
[00:08:35] And for our lives to be good soil, there needs to be a surrender. There needs to be an Obedience.
[00:08:43] We read in 1 Samuel. Obedience is better than sacrifice.
[00:08:49] Obedience to the Holy Spirit or sacrifice to religion.
[00:08:55] If you want your life to be good soil, you need to reject religion and become obedient to the Holy Spirit. Let me say that again. If you want your life to be good soil, you need to reject religion and become obedient to the Holy Spirit.
[00:09:15] You see, one day we're all going to stand before Jesus. It's going to be a great day. But trust me, there are only a few words you want to hear as you walk into heaven, and those are, well done, good and faithful servant. You know, you don't want to hear, how did you get in?
[00:09:35] You know, or, wow, you just made it.
[00:09:39] Those are not the words you want to hear.
[00:09:42] Well done, good and faithful servant. Jesus goes on, you have been faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter the joy of our Lord. That's what you want to hear.
[00:09:58] You know, it's interesting. No one has ever, you know, you know, we get words and prophetic words every now and again, but no one has really ever prophesied over Julia and I about this church.
[00:10:13] You know, they've never prophesied about this will happen or that will happen or that will happen. Occasionally, we get to get words, but not really detailed words.
[00:10:22] You know, the fruit of this church has been we just. We read the Bible and we saw the New Testament church and we just prayed, lord, would you do it here in Leicester?
[00:10:34] Would you do what we read here, here?
[00:10:40] Would you do that?
[00:10:41] And, you know, Aviva Miento went away. Now, they never prophesied over what would happen here. We just saw the sick being healed and the lost being saved. And something went in our heart and we went, we want that.
[00:10:57] That's what we need. So we came back with a seed of the Word of God and we nurtured it here. Bethel Church never prophesied over our worship. You're going to be great worship people. But we went there and we listened to some of their songs and we went, oh, we love those songs. We would love to write songs like that. So there was a word.
[00:11:19] We took the seed and we bought it back here and we planted it and we waited to see what would grow.
[00:11:28] You see, the parable of the sower seems so wasteful because he sows so liberally.
[00:11:36] But the eyes of the Lord are roaming the earth looking for Daniels and Daniela's looking for men and women who will receive the Word, will treasure it, and allow it to grow in their lives.
[00:11:55] And Jesus gives us. And I'm going to move really quick. Jesus gives us three warnings that will stop fruitfulness in our lives. The first one is, he says, some of the seed falls by the wayside. It kind of falls in between fields.
[00:12:09] And because the hearer doesn't understand, the devil comes and he snatches the word away. And we often use this when we talk about salvation, you know. You know, we say, oh, well, some make it and some don't. You know, when years ago, when Juliet became a Christian in our church in Southend, that me and a good friend were kind of leading. Well, we were leading the church and we, you know, we were seeing people getting saved, and we would sometimes have a little wager on who would make it and who wouldn't.
[00:12:39] And Juliet was quite argumentative.
[00:12:42] She argued about everything.
[00:12:44] She was. There was a strong feminist streak in her.
[00:12:49] She had an opinion about everything. And we went, I. I don't know if she's gonna make it.
[00:12:54] We like the quiet ones.
[00:12:57] Okay, I'll be in trouble when I get home.
[00:13:02] But.
[00:13:04] But what we couldn't see was the change that was happening on the inside.
[00:13:12] Because externally, she was a bit argumentative.
[00:13:16] But internally, there was a heart who had received Jesus, who was yielding to Jesus and saying, yes, Lord.
[00:13:27] You see, often the best soil can be the most argumentative, the most difficult, the most challenging. But they are the lives that bow down, that pick up the cross of Jesus. You know, they declare, jesus, you can have all my anger, all my difficulties, all my disappointments. I bring them to the cross. But, Jesus, don't let me down.
[00:13:53] I want to give you all of this so I can live for you, but don't let me down.
[00:14:01] You know, I don't even know if the seed was meant for me, but I believe I wasn't in your field. I don't fit in this place. But somehow that seed of your word found me.
[00:14:13] And is it possible that you could rescue me, that you could give my life a purpose?
[00:14:19] And you see the eyes of the Lord are roaming, and he hears the prayer and he goes, you bet I can do that. Yes.
[00:14:28] The second thing he says is, some falls on stony places. Jesus says they receive the word with joy, but it doesn't take root. It's a bit like a firework. Goes up like a rocket and falls down like a stick.
[00:14:38] What causes this persecution or trouble? And it makes us stumble, you know, When I found faith, my parents thought I'd joined a cult, so they banned me from going to church. I was 13 years old. They banned me from going to church. Best thing that could have happened to me, you know, my teenage rebellion was trying to get to church. I would literally climb out a window and run away from home to get to church.
[00:15:03] It saved me so much heartache.
[00:15:08] But what I've learned is whenever God speaks, the Word is tested.
[00:15:13] Why does he allow that? The testing to the Word can take root.
[00:15:19] You see, when Jesus is baptized, he is immediately tested.
[00:15:24] So in Luke we read, he goes into the wilderness full of the spirit, but he comes out in the power of the spirit after he's overcome the testing.
[00:15:33] Why you need to faith over it. So when you receive a prophetic. When you receive a prophetic word and the absolute opposite happens, the reason you got the word was so you could faith over it and push through and see it come into being.
[00:15:52] God's just testing and he's allowing. Will you believe what I say or will you believe the circumstances? You know, the hardest thing we do here every week is pray for the sick. When we first started.
[00:16:04] This is a confession. I go out each morning and pray. I. And I'm praying, oh, God, can we just have a morning off this week?
[00:16:13] I know you never pray that. Could you have a morning off being a Christian or a week off?
[00:16:19] You do, you liars. I know.
[00:16:21] I know what you like. He told me what your prayer. No. And I just prayed, but he was silent.
[00:16:26] And one of the things I've learned with God is, you know, he's never once said to me, oh, Steve, just take it easy. Oh, you feel a bit tired. Don't worry, Take a few weeks off. It'll be fine. He never said that to me. And I'm like, can we just. Can we? It's hard, Lord. And he just was silent. I've learned when he's silent, that means just keep doing what I told you to do.
[00:16:47] Keep going, keep going. You see, Jesus is looking for obedient people.
[00:16:53] That's the definition of discipleship.
[00:16:56] Yeah, I often you scroll through things on the Internet and the church needs to make disciples.
[00:17:03] Oh, give me a break.
[00:17:06] Disciples are just obedient people. You just need to do what you're told, what the Holy Spirit tells you, then you are a disciple.
[00:17:15] They do what their master does. Jesus preached the gospel, healed the sick. It's time for some new wineskins.
[00:17:20] Someone must do what he says.
[00:17:22] So often, you know, I feel foolish. People laugh at me. Oh, it's just Steve and his funny ways. No, it's Steve trying to be obedient to the Holy Spirit.
[00:17:33] I'm trying to do what he says.
[00:17:36] You know, if Jesus has spoken to you and the Word is being tested, he wants to make your feet like hinds feet. Habakkuk 3:19.
[00:17:45] You see, deer can walk among rocks so that you can walk amongst the rock and not stumble so that you don't lose your joy.
[00:17:57] Thank you Lord, that I'm being tested. Let your word dwell in me. You live in me by your spirit, but let your word dwell in me. Remember, David is anointed king long before he takes the throne.
[00:18:12] Don't let the devil steal your joy. You know, that's one of the reasons we're so up here is if you can't dance in his presence, you won't dance in his victory.
[00:18:27] But if you can learn to dance in his presence, you will dance in victory.
[00:18:33] And then number three, Some fell among the thorns. The Word is choked.
[00:18:40] This is what Jesus says now. He who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the Word. And the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of the riches choke the Word. And. And he becomes unfruitful. I don't know if you underline your Bible.
[00:18:56] I'd never thought about that before.
[00:18:59] Underline it. He becomes unfruitful. You see, look, thorns grow up everywhere. I've got a lawn. I don't understand why the grass can't grow, but the thorns just. It doesn't matter if it's a drought, if it's winter, if it's snowing, it's freezing. The weeds just grow.
[00:19:14] They come from nowhere. What's happened is this person has received the Word.
[00:19:19] He or she has believed and become fruitful in God.
[00:19:26] But they have now become unfruitful. How?
[00:19:33] The cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches.
[00:19:37] Well, Steve, you don't understand. I was a crazy Jesus freak in my youth, but now I'm married with children, and I need to be a little bit more responsible.
[00:19:46] Yes, you do. You need to grow up and take care of your family.
[00:19:49] But do you not want your family to be radical for Jesus?
[00:19:54] Growing up and taking care of your family is not ceasing to be radical for Jesus. You know, I got the mission bug out of my system when I was young, but now I'm working on my career. There's nothing bad about that at all. But what was the call on your life? What did the Word that on your life say? What did Jesus say your life was about? What is he saying about your life right now?
[00:20:18] You see, we are many here who have been radically saved.
[00:20:22] The word has been planted in your heart and now there is a pulling going on from the world, from riches and from the Holy Spirit. Now, please hear me.
[00:20:34] I believe some of you need to go and make tons of money to support the coming revival that is about to happen. Go for it. But there are equally as many people who are being called into the ministry, into media, into politics. But you're taking the safe road, and you will never be fulfilled on the safe road.
[00:20:55] You know, seven years ago, the Holy Spirit told us to live. No, not seven years ago, nearly 10 years ago. And the. I think it was about 2016, 2017, he spoke to us and said, I want you to live stream your services.
[00:21:10] And it was just at a point where things were not going well.
[00:21:14] People were leaving and we didn't have enough musicians.
[00:21:18] And he says, I want you to start live streaming. And so we started to get all the gear together to start to do it. And then Covid hit and it was a lifeline during COVID however, what he actually said, he says, I want a window into the church so people can see.
[00:21:39] And we have watched many, and many have watched us on our journey over the last eight or nine years. And so what started as this little seed of streaming a service when nobody else was doing it.
[00:21:56] Let me finish with this.
[00:21:59] Hold that thought. Jesus says, he who receives seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces some a hundredfold, some 60 and some 30.
[00:22:13] You see, when we started the livestream, there were just a few people who couldn't make church looking in. And we thought, oh, you know, you're a bit busy on Sunday morning. You can tune in on YouTube. The cameras were all over the place. You could see up people's legs. You know, they were all blurred. The lighting wasn't right.
[00:22:33] But you believed and sowed.
[00:22:36] As I watched the end of year video this year, it was a real illustration of reaping and sowing. Do you know 8.1 million streams were watched last year of the worship here?
[00:22:48] 8.1 million.
[00:22:52] You see, I asked them to do me a graphic.
[00:22:59] This is 30% reaping. As we go through the weeks, it's going to go up of what God wants to do in our lives.
[00:23:11] There are no limits on the Lord, you know, now, I mean, just I said last week, the worship guys, they have 142 people following.
[00:23:25] That's what God does. When you sow, there is a harvest and it starts small. Our Compassion Ministries, some of you work in the Compassion Ministries.
[00:23:35] Just last year they helped 600 families with food. And what we do is we feed people over a period of time. We don't just give them a parcel, we feed them over. Because when people get into trouble, they need a period of help and we don't talk about it that much. But 600 people, 2,000 food parcels, and again, this figure doesn't sound like. But seven people completely out of debt, and that's not many. For those seven people it is, who were under the burden of debt, who was sinking, had no hope for the future, and now they're free just to live their life. That's a massive difference.
[00:24:17] You know, we had 250 new nights of worship in this building last year.
[00:24:24] This is a place of worship.
[00:24:27] This is what God does, You know, last year, 278 salvations, 92 baptisms. Over a thousand people in the last three years. Do you remember the months when no one walked forward? Some of you do. When it felt uncomfortable, the testing. And we wanted, lord, give us a week off. And he said, just keep going. But the word fell on God. Good soil, and we start to reap a crop.
[00:24:55] Week in, week out, praying for the sick. And now, week in, week out, people healed.
[00:25:02] Is this it?
[00:25:05] Have we reached the high water mark? No, I believe the Holy Spirit is just getting started. But the biggest warning to us is don't grow up.
[00:25:15] You know, don't stop being Jesus freaks.
[00:25:18] You know, some of you are now parents. You know, you got saved here, you've got married here, and your parents. And the temptation is now to grow up and be a boring part.
[00:25:28] Don't do that.
[00:25:30] Don't do it. Be radical for Jesus, but be a radical married person, a radical family person.
[00:25:38] Set the example for your children. Keep trusting the Lord. Don't become unfruitful.
[00:25:45] That's what the parable is about. You know, it's not that you're trying to. I want to be rich or I want to have this. I want to have this. There's nothing to do with that. It's just suddenly the cares of the world. I'm now a parent. I never wanted to be a parent.
[00:25:59] Now I've got to look after a whole family. I've got to pay the bills and the cares of the world, and they cause us to become unfruitful. Instead of trusting in the word of the Lord and rising above it and seeing his provision in our lives and in our family's lives, you see, the word falls on good soil and we get a harvest.
[00:26:25] Look, if you receive the seed of the Word of God into your life, if you will believe and you will surrender, you will reap a harvest some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30.
[00:26:40] All right, I'm going to finish with this.
[00:26:43] 2026 is here.
[00:26:47] I said, you know my Methodist background. Covenant Sunday Will you keep worshiping undignified through this year? Will you keep going?
[00:26:58] Will you keep praying on Tuesday nights? Will you keep praying for this nation and praying that God will pour out his spirit? Will you keep giving testimony all the Lord is doing in your life?
[00:27:10] Will you keep your joy in his presence?
[00:27:14] Don't get boring.
[00:27:16] Will you keep telling your friends about Jesus? Will you keep telling them of his goodness?
[00:27:22] Will you keep loving his words and living in this book? Will you keep feeding the poor and taking care of them? Will you keep believing for miracles and seeing God work?
[00:27:37] And will we keep the soil of our lives ready for revival?
[00:27:44] And the church said Amen. Why don't you stand? I'm done.
[00:27:49] Thanks for listening to the Cromer Church Podcast. If you enjoyed this message, you can like and subscribe. You can also join us in person or online every Sunday at Cromer Church. For more information about us, including our ministries, events, worship and how to donate, visit our website at Chroma Church.
