Sacrificial Love

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Tal Paul's Preaching. This episode is titled Sacrificial Love, and it is all about a mother's sacrificial love for her children with how that. [00:00:14] Speaker B: Relates to flowers, plants, and seeds, and. [00:00:19] Speaker A: Is an example of God's love for us. This episode was recorded on Mother's Day, May 12th of 2019. As well as honoring mothers, this episode explores gardening so that trees grow up strong enough to weather the storms of life and how seeds must first die and be planted at the right depth in the fertile soil of our hearts. The main scriptures are First Corinthians, chapter 15, and the Gospel of Luke, chapter 6. Let's pray. Oh, Lord, what a beautiful day you've given us, Lord, we just pray that your spirit would come and rest upon us and teach us and grow us closer to you, Lord, we just pray for this day. And we ask that you give a special blessing upon all the mothers, Lord. Oh, we pray for our kids, Lord. That's a mother's heart right there. We just pray that they would be okay, Lord, that you would be right there with them and that they too would grow close to you. And everything that all the mothers and fathers that have instilled in them, that would take root and grow and that they would flourish and blossom in our Lord Christ. Lord, we just pray for our country as well, Lord, that your hand would be upon it and you would guide it and direct it. We pray for this day and pray for this message in your son's glorious name. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Well, I have a praise. Yes, absolutely. My granddaughter had a little baby yesterday. Oh, wow. May granddaughter praise the Lord. Yeah, it is. Pray for that new life. That's. Yeah, exactly. Oh, Lord, praise you for that new life, Lord. Thank you. It's Mother's Day, and we want to honor our mothers with praise and thank them and God bless all you mothers out there, Lord. Oh, so much work that you guys do, and we don't always recognize it, but today we want to take this day and just thank you for all the work that you put in. A mother and her little boy Billy, they were visiting grandma for Mother's Day. And while his mom and grandmother were in the kitchen making cookies, little Billy was exploring the house of his grandmother. And he came across this giant book on the shelf. And he was really curious, what's a giant book? And so he calls out to the kitchen, says, hey, what's this? Can I look at it? His mom pops out of the kitchen to check on Billy and see what he's found. And she explains to little Billy, oh, that large book, that's the old, old family Bible. And if your hands are clean and. And you're very careful, you can take a look at that book. And so little Billy, he takes that book off the shelf and he sits down on the couch and he's just fascinating as he's fingering through those old, old pages of the family Bible. And all of a sudden, something falls out of it. He's curious and he looks down and he picks up at the leaf that had been pressed between the pages of that old family Bible. And he exclaims out to his mom and grandmother in the kitchen, hey, look what I found. And his mom says, what did you find? He goes, I think it's Adam and Eve's underwear. That old pressed leaf in the family Bible. Oh, April showers bring May flowers. And May flowers are given to mom on Mother's Day. Oh, spring flowers. They are such a reminder. We need them after the winter. Boy, it's just a reminder of new life, of blossoming life. And it's an encouragement for growth and renewal. And those flowers just bring us joy. Today we're going to talk about mothers and plants and flowers, which just seem to go hand in hand. Mothers and flowers. And so, speaking of mothers, my mother, after this winter, and it was a rough winter she went through, and she took a master gardeners class and she graduated and she is now a master gardener. So good job, mom. It's been. It's a lifelong enjoyment instilled by her mother that my mom has for gardening. In fact, both my parents are garden enthusiasts and they love to garden. Well, let me correct that. They love still to garden. But when I was a kid, we had fruit trees, we had a giant pie cherry tree, we had a couple apple trees, and we had this little Charlie Brown pear tree that produced like three pears. You know, it was a sad little thing. We also had grapevines, large grapevines with both purple and green grapes. Now, I only like the green grapes, but we had that. And we had gardens. We had two gardens in the backyard, and that wasn't enough. So they went in the front yard and they cut out two giant circles in the front yard and planted stuff out there. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, they just love the garden. And we had flower garden right in front of the house, and we had a flower garden on the side of the house, and we had a flower garden right next to the back of the house. And next on the other side of the house was the driveway. But don't you despair. They found a space just on the other side of the driveway to plant some roses. But the crown, joy and pride of my mom, my mother was the flower garden that lined the street right next to the sidewalk out in front. And she planted that with all different kinds of irises. In fact, my mother graduated from West Valley, and over there was Millwood Presbyterian. And Millwood Presp. Was surrounded with irises. And her mom, little by little, was able to gather all the different kinds. And when my mom lived in our house on McDonald Road, her mom sent her 67 different varieties of irises. And that's what she planted out front. And she often would have people come along and take a bulb, you know, all the different colors. And that seemed to be just my mom's pride and joy. When I see irises, I think of my mom, and I think that's the way it should be. When we see flowers, we should think of our mothers. But boy, gardening, that's work. Tending a garden is not. Not easy. It's work. It takes effort. It takes planning. It takes weeding, fertilizing, and, oh, it's a lot of work. And so is motherhood. The time, the effort that mothers put in so that their kids will flourish is. Is really amazing. It's daunting when you think of it. And our spiritual lives as well. They also take work, you know, effort and planning. And you gotta weed and all that, because this life is hard. It really is. We all face trials. We all face hardships. And mothers especially want the best for their kids. And that's what we prayed for. But do we pray that our kids will escape trials? Or do we pray that our children will go through those trials and come out stronger and build that good character that we want to see in our kids? We should pray that they have the wisdom that they need to get through that trial to. That it will be over quickly and that they don't have to repeat it and that they get whatever needs to be fixed. That's what we should pray, and we should help and encourage them and not fix it for them and leave them unprepared for life when we're not around. There was an interesting experiment made with trees, and researchers did this in Illinois. And they. They took a bunch of trees and they put them in three groups inside a greenhouse where the elements wouldn't affect them. They were sheltered. And the first group of trees, they staked. Staked all the way up. And the second group of trees, they just left alone to grow on their own. And the third group of trees, interestingly enough, they would every day take some couple minutes, and they shake the trees just like the wind. So with these three groups of trees, they measured them before and then they measured them after just to see how they would grow. And the first group of trees, the ones that were staked, they grew the tallest, really tall, but they weren't strong enough to support themselves. They relied on that stake to support themselves, and they didn't develop the diameter of the trunk that they needed. The second group, without any elements or the wind or anything, the unstaked trees, they just grew whichever way they want. Some weren't strong enough to support themselves, and they just didn't grow straight and haphazardly. But the third group, the ones that were shaking every day, they were the strongest. They had the biggest diameter of base, and they weren't the tallest, but. But they were the strongest and healthiest. An example I see a lot is when they go in and they log an area and they just leave these spindly little trees as seed trees. And they grew up depending upon those other trees around them to protect them from the wind and the elements. And when they're gone, they just snap over because they're not strong enough. And so we need those trials, that wind of the world, to buffet us and come against us so that we grow strong. But we also need that help and encouragement that a mom is always there to give us. So if your kids turn out great and you're proud of them like my mother is, my mother told me to tell you all that she is very proud of her children, Then praise the Lord, because kids don't just develop only because of their mothers. Those trials that God sent them, the wind, that the world shook them. God loves our kids more than even the best mom. And so praise God for his love and care and thank him when your kids turn out to be good kids. A teacher was testing her Sunday school class to see if they understood the concept of salvation. So she asked her class, if I were to sell my house and sell my car and have a great garage sale and sell everything I had and give that to the church, would that get me into heaven? No. Shouted all the children in unison. So the teacher asked, if I cleaned the church every day and kept it neat and tidy and served every day at the church, would that get me into heaven again? They all answered emphatically, no. At this point, she was smiling because, oh, man, the kids are starting to get it. That's not going to get me into heaven. She asked them if I was really kind to animals. And I gave all the children I knew candy. And I loved my husband, and I loved my friends and family and my neighbor. Would that get me into heaven? And again, the answer was a resounding no. She was just bursting with pride. And so she asked, well, then, how can I get into heaven? And little boy in the class shouted out, well, you gotta be dead. And although that's true, that little boy, he missed the point, it is a truth that for a seed to grow, it has to die first. And that's what we celebrated last month. We celebrated Easter, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And Jesus, he was that seed that was put to death, crucified for us. But don't you despair none. He rose again on the third day. He was planted in that tomb, and it became empty. And he is risen to everlasting life, never to die again and to give us that same opportunity of new life through him, God the Father, he provides us the spiritual seed we need. And that seed is the word of God. That seed is Jesus. Jesus said it himself. He was explaining the parable of the sower and the seed. We're all familiar with the the sower went forth and sowed some seed. And in Luke 8:11, Jesus plainly explains what that seed is. Jesus said, now the parable is the seed is the word of God. Jesus was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word is God. And that word that's planted in our hearts, that's the true seed, the Word. And there are lots of things that we can plant and instill in our children. We can teach them good hygiene. We can teach them to be nice to their mothers and how to act in public and how to drive. There are lots of things that we should teach our kids. But that seed, the word of God, that is, that's what we should plant in our children's hearts, because that's incorruptible. And that will grow and flourish and bless. That's the true seed. We must die to ourselves daily to bring that new life. As that little boy said, we gotta be dead indeed. My grandfather, he was a very busy man, always on the move. And in his young 80s, a young age of 80, he patented and invented a planting wheel. And this wheel would go on the back of those giant tractors that would plant wheat. And this wheel would ensure that the seed of the wheat was planted at just the right depth, that right depth to produce the maximum yield and maximum number of grain of wheat. That was my Grandfather. And we can make our heart. We can make that stone cement ground that the seed can't get in and grow. Or we could fill it with everything else and make it just a muddy soup that that seed of the word of God will just drown in. But in a fertile and willing heart, God plants a seed where it will grow best at just the right depth. He knows exactly what we need, and we need his word. We need quiet time with him. We need to pray. We need his light and his spirit to grow and produce that seed in us the best. And it will produce fruit and good fruit. But we don't just think happy or fruity thoughts and pop out comes the fruit. That's not how it works, is it? No. The word of God, that seed, it's planted in our open hearts and we grow with the living water of Jesus Christ. And through prayer and supplication, we grow towards that light. And pretty soon we've got that deep root developed in our heart and that strong foundational trunk through the trials, and we are the branches, and we're going about God's business, doing his will, and all of a sudden, oh, hey, fruit. Look, good fruit, much fruit. But we don't just start out chanting, fruit, fruit, fruit, fruit. You know, that's not how it goes. We just simply grow in Christ our lord. In Luke 6, verse 43, it For a good tree does not bring forth corrupt fruit, neither does a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For of thorns, men do not gather figs, nor do they go to a bramble bush to gather grapes. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth that which is good. And an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth that which is evil. For of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. See, we've got this well, this heart down here, and the bucket that goes down and draws what's out of our heart is the mouth. And what is in the heart comes out the mouth. Oh, boy, it's tough waiting for the growth of a plant, you know, you go out and you put the seeds in the ground and you water it and you come out the next day and there's still dirt. You come out the day after that, and, oh, there's just this little teeny green thing poking up through the ground. And, boy, so do we want to just rush that growth. But it takes. It takes a long time for that little pumpkin seed to grow into that pumpkin. And it's. It's in the fall that we get to harvest that. That's a. It's a long time. That's a. We can't hurry that growth process, and we, we just can't force growth. And we can't make fruit just by, you know, straining our muscles or yelling at it. The image I've got is the 400 prophets of Baal that Elijah challenged when it hadn't rained. And he challenged them, who can bring fire down from God and consume the offering? And they started in the morning and they danced and they sang and they ran around and they tried everything, calling to their false God, baal, and nothing happened. But Elijah, he was smart. He handicapped himself to bring fire down. He. He poured water over it not once, not twice, but three times. He soaked that offering and the fire, of course, came down from the living God and consumed that. But those prophets of BAAL that just straining and trying with all their strength, and that doesn't help things grow and that doesn't produce the fruit. Jesus, is that living water we should water our lives with? And those disciples, when Jesus was crucified, they agonized when he was put in the ground or put in that tomb. What should we do when those trials come against us? What should they have done? Should they have agonized or should we agonize? No. Should we be anxious? No. Should we worry? No. What do we do? We. We pray. We pray for that growth, for that new life, for revival. Really. And mothers, pray for that seed of life that you planted in your kids to grow. You planted it, you watered it, you worked and toiled. Pray that it takes root and grows, and it'll happen in God's time, not our own. We can't force it. What is the purpose of fruit? Is it for us to carry around and to look at and show people, hey, look at these delicious strawberries. Look at this giant apple, you know, oh, you can't eat it. It's just to look at. No, that's not what fruit is for, is it? Fruit is to be consumed. And that the spiritual fruit that we produce is also to be consumed, you know, and if it's mature enough and it becomes mature, you know, we plant that and plant that in our kids and plant that in others. And that's what we should do with our spiritual fruit, our gifts, our time, should spread that around and let other people enjoy it as well. But watch out, what's the bane of every gardener? Weeds, man. They seem to grow so much more easily. They mature faster than what you planted, produce more seed and just spread. And our fertile hearts, the soil in our fertile hearts are the same. It's great soil for the weed of the enemy, for deceit. And so we need to be careful what we let grow in our hearts. Those weeds, oh, man, it's just proof that the devil still rules this world. Oh, man, the weeds and the thorns, they grow just so easily. Wouldn't it be nice if flowers and plants just grew? You know, you turn over the soil in your garden and up pops a huckleberry plant or corn or whatever else, you know, strawberries and raspberries. Oh boy, wouldn't that be nice? But no, we have weeds and we have to work at it and tend to it to make sure those don't choke out the life of that word of God. While we grow, we should obviously grow towards the light, that light of Jesus Christ, the light of God. If you take a plant and you put it by a window and it grows just naturally, they don't have brains. They just naturally, they grow right towards that light. But we, with all our intellect and our brains, we sometimes choose our own way, don't we? For whatever silly reason we've got, we sometimes choose to grow towards the darkness and away from the light and go our own way. When I was a little boy, you know, with all those gardens, my parents encouraged, well, they made it chores, actually, to help with the harvest, to pick those raspberries. Man, those raspberries produce every couple days. And that's the way it is in life. We always need those people to help and the garden and harvest. But it would have been silly for my mother, when I was a little five year old, to hand me those loppers, those shears and say, go prune, go prune those grapes. And I would have just, you know, I would have gone crazy with those and I'd have clipped that big one right at the bottom, you know, where it comes out of the ground. That would have done it. And that's the danger, is that we shouldn't let our friends and family prune our own life. God is that master gardener. Let him do the pruning in your life because he knows the end from the beginning. He can see that branch that stretches way out in the future and he'll prune the right ones so that we don't get stuck out on the limb and come crashing back down to the earth. God is that master gardener. He does the work. He does that planning and pruning and all that. So we should grow in Christ and trust in God, trust in him. 1st Corinthians 15 it is a great chapter. 1st Corinthians 15. It's a great chapter after Easter because it just talks about the resurrection of Jesus and then it's a long chapter and I encourage you to read it. It's 58 verses long. So we're going to start in verse 35. And this is all about the resurrection. And someone will ask, this is Paul Apostle speaking, how are the dead raised and what kind of body will they come? How foolish. What you sow or plant does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that it will be but just a seed, perhaps a seed of wheat or something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives it its own body. 39 not all the flesh is the same. People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another, and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies, and there are earthly bodies. But the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another, and the stars another. And the stars differ from each star in their splendor. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown are perishable, but it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. Our bodies, these bodies. I just praise the Lord that our next bodies aren't going to get sick, aren't going to fail, aren't going to be weak. It's going to be wonderful. Verse 44 it is sown a natural body, but it is raised a spirit spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being, the last Adam, which is Jesus, a life giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural and after that the spiritual. Verse 47 the first man was of the dust of the earth. The second man is of heaven, as was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth, and as the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heaven heavenly man. Praise the Lord. Verse 50 I declare to you brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you A mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, he gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. And as we wrap this up, let's focus again on our mothers kids. They are life changers. They are plan wreckers really. That two door sports car that you had before your first kid came along, that quiet vacation that the two of you would take, that intimate little restaurant that you would go to and eat at, sleeping in on the weekends. Kids change our lives and they change it forever. We have kids and with those kids we have our hopes and our dreams and ideals of how life is going to be with our kids and how it's all going to come about. And then they arrive and that life, that new mother started it becomes its own, it grows, it takes shape and forms its own body, forms its own. They are their own persons and with their own heart that they need to garden and tend to. And that's the same with our spiritual life. It's birthed by God. We don't have control over our own spiritual journey. In other words, we don't decide what fruit we're going to produce and how much fruit we're going to produce or we don't pick the gifts that we're gonna have or the journey that the Lord is gonna take us on. That's up to God. You know, I'm thinking of a missionary. You know, even a short term mission will change a life, just as you know, a kid will change a life forever. And we shouldn't see our kids negatively because we had to turn our sports car into a minivan. Nor should we view our relationship with God in that way. You know, instead of sleeping in, we're at church, it's a beautiful day, there's so many things that we could be Doing other than reading our Bible or growing and Christ. But we choose to. Our spiritual life is a willful sacrifice, just like mothers with their kids. Do we obey God because we should, or do we obey God because we have to? Or do we obey out of love? The love we have for God, the love we have for our family and friends and our neighbor. The point of the sermon is mothers willfully sacrifice out of the love that they have for their kids. My wife is a great example of that. What a mother wouldn't do for their kids. Our Father in heaven is like that as well. What wouldn't God do? He gave his son for us, just like a mom. And that's exactly how we should be in our relationship with God. We should willingly sacrifice just like our mom. Let's pray. O Lord, just as our mothers would willfully give everything they had, even their life, for their kids. Lord, you did it. You paid the price. You gave us life that we can have everlasting life through Jesus Christ. Thank you for that. That that gift. May we blossom in our growth and our relationship with you and become that flower that you would have us become and grow us up in the shape and the strength and the glory that you want, Lord. Lord, we just submit our lives to you and we pray that you would us and we pray that we would tend to the garden of our hearts and protect it and keep planting that word of God, that seed that will grow and grow strong. Lord, would you bless this time of offering and may that too, that money go forth and do your will and grow and take shape just as you would see fit. Lord, we pray that everything we do and would bless you. Lord, we just thank you for this wonderful weather and for those spring flowers that remind us of life, of new life and revival and our life in you. Thank you for Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen. [00:37:13] Speaker B: Thank you for listening to this message. We hope you enjoyed it. Our prayer is that the message in some way or another, helped in your walk with God and that your relationship with God was strengthened and grew more intimate. If you would like to contact us with questions or comments, you can email us at the following address. That's me at redletters. Com or me at R E D L E T T E R S Com. Thank you.