Your resources, through your compassion, through your love.

Then study what God meant when he said, let my kingdom come because it releases everything. Amen. Check out our website for things we’re doing in the week. You know, one of the things that we’ve been trying to help our newer people recognize is something we do on Wednesday nights. And right now, we’re just getting together, connecting opportunity with one another.

We pray, we worship, we hear some word. But if you’re new to the house, Wednesday nights at seven, we gather. And the Lord’s doing some important things there. So do check it out.

With that, I want to ask Pastor Amanda to come on up to the platform. We’re ready. We’re ready to hear from you again. Yeah.

Thank you for being obedient. That’s great.

No. Yes. There we go. Good morning, Church. Is it well with you? Isn’t it good to be in the presence of the Lord? Yes. What a wonderful opportunity to be together. I love togetherness. Thank you so much. I’m privileged to be here. It is not. It’s always an honor to speak. No matter where I go. It’s always an honor.

But it’s a particular honor when you get the opportunity to do more than just come as a conference speaker, where you’re really part of a house’s journey. And I’m grateful that now, for many, many years, I’ve had the privilege of walking alongside Word of Life in various ways. I can still remember probably 12 years ago. I’ll never forget it.

Chad Flores came up to me when I first started coming here, and he said, would you mind coming along and speaking to a young adult group? Some of you may remember this. And I thought it was a little odd because I didn’t think that Chad was that young.

But yeah, I’m picking at him. But he did invite me along, and when I showed up, I realized what was termed young adults in his mind and what was in my mind were not the same thing. But I can still remember that door opening to me from his willingness just to say, hey, I think you got something.

And I’ve asked Pastor Pat about it, and we wanted to know if you could come and just talk to us today. Now, many years later, I’ve had such a beautiful privilege of not only being in Chad Flores’s life at that particular moment or now as a speaking moment, but I’ve had the privilege of helping make sure he got married off to a wonderful girl that I put into his arms named Samantha, as well as helping him to be successful in life as a pastor because he now lives in England.

So, is that good news? I’m thankful that you’ve been a sender of a son. You sent him to Oklahoma, and then God sent him to England. And that’s a fruitfulness that comes from you. It comes from your deposit and what you’ve done. And I’m so glad I get to see him in Meerk Village again because it feels like we see each other.

Two primary places: England and Meerk. It just seems to be the places we see one another. I’m also glad that Rebecca Nettleton, who’s part of our eldership team, has traveled with me. She’s amazing. I would make room for her to speak, but all of you would be so mesmerized by her accent that you would not want to go back to my southern accent, so I’m going to have to just forfeit that and forego that.

But she’s an incredible woman of God. She’s helped so much. Her and her husband, Mark, see that our transition was one of health and strength, and they’ve come alongside. They really have been an Aaron and Hur to the crazy arms of Moses. And I’m grateful for the gift of God that resides within her, and also her willingness to travel with someone who just doesn’t pay attention to stuff.

I just tend to believe everything will work out. I just tend to believe that about life. And Rebecca, Becky, is not that way. She tends to believe like we should pay attention. So it’s a lot of fun to see how her faith arises when she travels with me. I send her to new dimensions.

But anyway, I also want to obviously give honor. Some of you were here on Friday night when I had the opportunity to speak about your apostles. Apostle Pat, who’s in the back because he’s going to help me, and Apostle Selene, who I have such a warm place in my heart. It’s never a struggle to receive love and to say yes to an invitation to Meerk Village.

And that is not because I just absolutely think this is the easiest trip I ever take. But you are a beautiful people, and you have been led by a beautiful couple for so many years. I have heard part of that journey, and then I’ve gotten to experience it, and the experience far outweighs just what I’ve heard because they are a light to this region.

They have been stabilizers. They’re the kind of people that when you look in Scripture and you look for whatever the definition of a pillar is. You know what you know. And I learned, I don’t want to cross any bridge that doesn’t have pillars. And one thing I love about Pat and Charlene is that they were bridge builders, and they did not want to be the bridge.

They just wanted to make sure they were the pillars in the bridge. They wanted you to be the bridge. And I love that about them. They’re constantly yielding to make room for other people by being a pillar that other people can cross. And I just want to bring significant honor to the apostles of this house, Pat and Selene McDonald.

Come on. You know. Yeah. Good, good. Amen, Amen.

They are amazing. I was so heartbroken last year when I could not get across the pond for the transition service. I know I sent a video, but I got to be honest with you. Like that wasn’t enough. In my world. It was really, really a difficult season because I love to celebrate with my friends. And you know, I love your pastors.

Jonathan and Shelly Foley are amazing. They’re incredible. And I’ve gotten to be in the kind of, you know, the arena. I wouldn’t say I’m always on the field because it depends on when I’m here, but I’m in the arena of being able to watch what God’s done in their life for so many, many, many years.

And when I first met Jonathan, I thought he was the most sarcastic person I’d ever met. But God’s redeeming it. Because he cares for you. But in all truth, I remember when I first met Jonathan, the only time I ever saw him really on a platform was when he was leading worship. And that was a wonderful sight. And I remember those days of thinking, wow, what an incredible guy.

His heart for the Lord, his heart to honor God, to always put everything out there. And I’ve watched him transition from being just a worship leader into a worshiper, into a pastor. And that transition as a friend, as a colleague, as a co-laborer, has been such a rewarding sight for me personally, because it just helps me to know that you have leaders that are never not going to keep growing, they’re never not going to keep saying yes.

They’re never not going to keep pushing through. Shelly has been on so many teams of mine over the years, and we’ve been in so many environments. And I am just honored to continue to affirm the gift to God in both of you. You are demonstrating by the people in this room today, not just those that have just said yes to continue, but those who have joined you, that your voice matters in this region, that your voice is making a difference, and that your prophetic insight is continuing to impact what God is doing in Tulare County and abroad and what he’s doing further.

And I just want to say that the Bible says that there’s only one set of gifts that God gave as men. Do you know that? Right? Like everybody else has a gift that gets on the inside. But there’s five gifts that we’re actually given as people. That means that when you had this little baby inside of you and they have a call of God on their life to be a pastor or a prophet or an evangelist or a teacher or an apostle, you’re carrying the affirmation of the gift of Jesus to the world, and that means God specifically chose you to be here in this moment and at this time. And it’s your gift. So I want to take an opportunity to celebrate Jonathan and Shelly Foley for the gift of God that they are here.

Amen, Amen. Come on. Really good. Thank you. I know I took a few extra minutes, but there’s nothing I would rather do than to celebrate people that I love. And I hope you feel the same. How many of you know don’t wait till someone’s funeral to say something nice? Oh, yes. Yes, that’s the ridiculous way. That is not a kingdom mindset.

A kingdom mindset learns to affirm, learns to encourage, learns to build up, learns to look past the things that are dysfunctional. Yes. You’re welcome for that too. I’m going to do things a little bit different today. It’s not in my nature to come to every church with how I’m going to steward my message today, but because of my relationship with this church and where I believe you’re at, I feel strongly to lean into what I would maybe consider a more prophetic message about direction and what I sense God’s saying.

Now, some of this will not be pragmatic. In other words, it will be up here in the sky, a prophecy that you have to then learn how to take and glean from and push into the pragmatic, practical outworking and strategy with it. Because I only have 45 minutes. So even if I had a strategy, I don’t have enough time to give it to you.

So I want Here’s the cleaned-up version of the transcript without timestamps and “unknown”:

To take us on a little bit of a different journey, because I feel I have not the apostle of this house, but I do know I have an apostolic voice to it. Yes, I do know that. So, what you learn about apostolic gifts is that you understand what you’re of, and you understand what you’re to. Some of y’all will get that on the other side.

And my father, he was a great, diligent servant to teach that he understood the difference of where his voice was to something, and then the apostle of something. I gleaned that from a great man of God that now is in heaven. But he left a lot of rich soil behind. And so I want to take a minute and just unpack. If I was an apostolic leader, these would be the types of things I’d want to talk about today over Word of Life. So I’m going to do it a little different. We’re not going to stand for a scripture. I’m going to jump right in and then I’m going to just take us on a journey. I’m going to unpack some thoughts and let God do the rest. Is that okay with everybody? Let’s pray.

Lord, thank you for the ability to preach and teach. I’m so grateful today. Your word is a lamp unto our feet. It lights, it illuminates, it guides, it provides direction. And I’m asking you, as I prophetically speak, into what I believe is the atmosphere of this county, into the future of this church, into what was called by Candy the womb of this people. Let it lay upon fertile soil. Let hearts be changed, let eyes be illuminated, let ears be unlocked, and let chains be broken that hinder us from apprehending the word you’re giving to us. You get all the glory and all the honor. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

If I was going to give a title to today’s message, I would call it “The Farmer’s Heart.” I’m calling it this because I felt inclined last night as I was sitting with the beautiful couple that I’ve been in relationship with here as well, Michelle and Jarobi, and hearing their story and also finding my space in that story. I was reminded of what God sometimes does, and I left the meeting and was on my way back to where I was staying. I passed through the most beautiful places here, and I heard the Holy Spirit say, “Look up prescribed burns.” Now, this is not something I’m given to because I would not know what that is by the natural. That is not a word I’m familiar with. I didn’t understand it, but I did grow up in South Florida. Jody and I both grew up there, and in South Florida from the fall until the spring, when a harvest of sugar cane is in, they do not go and just harvest the sugar cane as it is. They prescribe a burn over the sugar cane fields. Even with it green and lush, looking exactly like the stocks of corn but as sugar cane, they begin a burn on one side of the field, and they push that burn all the way to the other side of the field. Then, when the burn has happened, they harvest the sugar cane because in sugar cane, all of the stocks, all of the leaves have to be burned and seared in order to release what is in the very bottom of a sugar cane plant. That’s the only thing of value. Everything else that grew has to be burned off.

And I was reminded about what I believe the season of this ministry has been in. I believe that the ministry we have been in here at Word of Life has been a prescribed burn, that God has allowed a burning, a searing of the ground, a searing of the stock, so that what comes next is the planting and harvesting of something worthwhile. I looked up this word because, as you can imagine, I was trying to understand it, and it gave me a couple of things that prescribed burns do. Is this okay? It says that prescribed burns can warm up the soil and help it dry out faster, which can help farmers get their crops planted on time with maximum yield. It can warm up the soil. It can prepare the soil to Receive a seed faster than you could do if you are just doing it in the temperature you found the soil in. I am reminded again about how many people in this room have been fighting fires, and I wonder if I could compel you to believe they were prescribed.

I wonder if I could impress upon you that the fire that’s been burning your field has been working for your success, for your fruitfulness, for your future? Yes, because another definition of what a prescribed burn does is that it removes previous crop residue from the skin. It prepares the fields for a new growing season. I would like to just speak openly, if that’s okay.

May I do that? May I expand my thoughts? Will you give me that privilege? I just wonder what would happen in a generation of people if we could allow God to burn some things on our fields again? I wonder what would happen to our next crop if we stopped talking about how good the last one was?

I wonder what could happen with our faith if we were willing to take the leftovers that were in the field and not try to take them and control them and hold on to them because we fear the lack of loss. But we will let the burn burn up all of the reminders of the harvest before. Would there be a generation that could tackle some of the issues we are facing today if they did not compare today’s harvest methods to yesterday’s harvest occurrences? Could we let what was left in the field go through a prescribed burn?

Genesis chapter two gives us a great indication of a couple of things, and you can just make note of it, because I will make notes of many things. It talks about God’s creation. I love when God shows himself as a creator. Wherever there is life, there is possibility. It’s not amazing. As long as there’s life, there is possibility.

That’s what I love about the Lord. I love that there is eternal life, so there’s never a lack of possibility. Possibility can even happen after death. Yes. Well, you never met a prophet whose bones brought somebody back to life. Because in God, death isn’t death. Death still carries possibility. Life always carries possibility. But in order to multiply, there has to be a responsible people.

Because in Genesis chapter two, it says all this possibility of land existed, all these created things existed, and yet there was no rain that ever came on that land until there was a man to steward it. So even though life carries possibility, it can never produce without the responsibility of a man. And I wonder today in 2024 if we have not cast off our responsibility because we fear the burden of the fields we’ve been going through, and God can’t send anything new because we’re busy grieving what has gone.

Letting us remember that my compulsion to you today is that you be okay with a prescribed burn, that the burn is making room for something more. Here is where I feel prophetically inclined. I think Apostle Pat is going to help me. I want you to turn with me to Isaiah chapter two. I sent my verses. They may be on this screen, verse three and four: Many people shall come and say, come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of God of Jacob.

He will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people. Here’s what he says happens when he shows up: They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.

And the nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore. Now, this is about to get dicey, because I’m about to take you on a journey that’s going to absolutely have to confront the way we like to see things. Can you bring the sword, pastor Pat? Yeah, just the sword. Come on, brother, you’re on my team here.

Yeah. We got to work together. Here comes the sword of the sword. Yeah. What? Pastor Pat and the sword that pastor Bob provided. I mean, my gosh, before long, we’re going, going, going. Here’s what happens. Here’s what happens. We love this weapon.

We love it because we know how to use it. We also know when we see it. It has one purpose: to protect, to defend, and to make sure that you don’t become harmed. And whatever’s coming at you, you can harm. Nobody carries this if they’re not willing to harm something. I mean, right? I mean, you’ve watched The Gladiator.

This is a heart. Nobody walks around and thinks, man, I’m going to keep this punch in you while I’m holding the sword, because this is an indicator of an indication of a type of war weapon. This is what we love to war with. I would like to say that we are moving out of the generation that needs this weapon.

Hear me correctly. It doesn’t mean we don’t need this weapon. We don’t need it this way. Right? This weapon has served a purpose at Word of Life. There have been things you’ve had to walk through. There are things that, over the generations that I’ve not only heard about, but then also came in on in the very beginning of when there were words, accusations, problems, all types of things that had to be war fought in the spirit, and it had to be done with a weapon of war.

The enemy had to know that we were carrying swords that could take off your head. I love that. I believe that those generations have been vitally important to the body of Christ. I do not disregard them. I believe they were foundational, and they were God’s method. But it is no longer God’s methodology now, because this is what the Bible says.

This sword didn’t get disregarded. It was transformed. If you’re looking at Isaiah two, it does not say that you put away your sword. It does not say you went and changed weapons, but it does not say, oh, maybe for this generation, this was what will be next. It says that when the King of Zion comes, when he shows up in all of his glory, you will be under such a protection of a sword you cannot see, that you will no longer need the weapons of warfare that you have used up until this point because he’s coming to his mountain and he’s coming to talk to his people, and he’s going to transform what you’ve been using.

But see, we love this good. And I’m not allowed to come down. They told me. I want to, I almost did, but I remember that face up there. I’m trying to be submitted. Here’s what happens. We love to have an enemy.

Right. And if we’re fearful, we want an enemy. If we’re angry, we want an enemy. If we’re hurt, we want an enemy. It’s okay. I know this is true. It’s human behavior. Human behavior is to deal with our pain by putting it on someone else. You say, where’s that at in the Bible? Let me give you a great example.

This is not in my notes, but it’s free for you. Cain and Abel. The Bible says that Cain came before God. God rejected his offering. Right. I don’t have time to break it all down. I’m going to give you the highlight reel. He rejects his offering. He watches his brother go give an offering. God accepted. God spoke to Cain and said, I’m rejecting this, but you’re very close to sin.

In other words, pay attention. In other words, God had already come to Cain and given him a chance. But he observed in his brother that his brother’s offering was received. Let me tell you why Cain killed Abel. It was not just because he was angry with Abel. He was angry with God.

But he knew he had no chance against God. So he displaced his anger from God onto Abel. Because we need an enemy.

Are you following because it’s natural to want to make sure that they know they can’t get you. But here’s what I’m sensing over this house. Come on, pastor Pat, you can come help me. Here’s what happens. I believe that our efforts must go from fighting for our future towards farming our future.

Eventually, you have to decide whose weapon you’re going to live under. Here’s what God called your weapon.

You’re welcome. You say that can’t be true. Let me take you to Ephesians six, where we put on the armor of God. You talk about the sword of the spirit. Pastor Pat talked about what the sword is in the Bible yesterday. What is the sword? The word. Matthew 13 says, the farmer comes and sows the seed. That is the Word of God.

Some people fall on good soil, some people fall on bad soil. And where do you find the good soil? Multiplication happens. Guess what your weapon is? This is your work. So every time you start talking about Ephesians chapter six, I challenge you that the sword of the spirit you have in your hand is not a defense weapon. It is an offensive weapon that is at work.

I’m trying to prophetically talk to you because I’m telling you, God is transforming this church from being weapons of warfare into being people of the farm. Lord, here is what I have found. There is something far greater in the planting of seed and me being seed full than me fighting off all the bad seed. Because I never control the farm.

But God’s transforming this. I’m going to give this to pastor Pat, and I’m going to hold on to our new weapon.

See, and I pastor a church in England. I’ve been there three and a half years. God’s blessing us tremendously. I mean, there’s a lot of challenges, but there’s a lot of cool things, too. The good things far outweigh the bad. It’s not always easy, that’s for sure. This past year,God spoke to me about I was having invitations everywhere.

And you know, if you know me, I love to go. But man, I love to build. It’s what I love. I love being in a building, man. And the Holy Spirit spoke to me and he said the season of farmers are arising. People who will, who will dig, who will dig. So that was our we’re deep this year.

Deeper digging, digging deeper, because God told us that it was time to go into the soil of our nation. You see, most people’s answers to advancement is to fight off an enemy and take over land. That’s what it’s been for generations. That’s what you look at in history books. That’s what you get taught in 10th and 11th and 12th grade history, that the way you possess something is to overpower it.

But in the kingdom, the way you possess something is to become fruitful and multiply in it. Yeah. That’s good. Yeah. I don’t get possession comes from who owns the farm and. So God put it in our heart to plant 64 campuses in the next 13 years. That’s a ridiculous number and a ridiculous thing. And I have no idea why God gave it, but it’s been confirmed by everybody that I know, and it’s dumb.

Because it’s work and because it’s hard and because it doesn’t make sense and because it’s well beyond me. But God gave me a word and he said, Amanda, what I’m asking of you is to change your fighting techniques. I’m asking you to go from fighting for this future here and become a farmer of it. Do you know what farming I hate about farming?

It’s repetitive work. It’s in the sun. It’s in the elements. You don’t get to choose the environments options of what’s happening that day. If you live in England and you’re farming on one Tuesday, it could be pouring rain on you. You could be here and it could be 105 degrees. You don’t get to choose the atmosphere of what you’re doing.

It’s chosen for you. You get to be consistent at what you’ve been told you are farming for. Your future will have far more lasting rewards in this church because there will be days that you will have planted a seed that the next generation will get to harvest. But if you choose to only harvest and only fight for a harvest, then you get a one generational reward that.

Because you did not plant and harvest.

See, we’ve redirected our energy at Mosaic Church. That’s the church I pastor. We’ve redirected it because I’ve learned I’ve only got so much energy. And if I don’t understand how to use the sword, God’s given me the weapon he’s given me. I will waste my time trying to fight you with the back end of a piece of wood.

But you pray that knowing I’m on the defeat. But it’s only because I didn’t know how to use the weapon God gave me. And my energy is low. Not because God did anything to me, but because I did not appropriate my opportunity. So it’s okay. So I want to tell you a few things real quick that I hope help you.

Here’s the first one. Harvest is always the justice of God at work in the earth. I’m going to take you to a verse that just helps you. Ezekiel 34:25-30 in the NIV, I will make a covenant, a peace with them, and I will rid the land of savage beasts, so that they may live in the wilderness and sleep in the forests and safety.

I will make them and the places surrounding my hill a blessing. I will send down showers in season. There will be showers of blessing. The trees will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops. The people will be secure in their land and they will know that I am the Lord. When I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands who have enslaved them.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the very definition of justice. And guess where it came? It did not come from a sword. It did not come from an army. It did not come from a general. It did not come from a strategy. It came from farming. The harvest is always an indicator of the justice of God at work. You need a New Testament example, Galatians chapter six. You can write it down for yourself. Verses seven and eight. Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he shows. Verse eight, whoever sows to please their flesh from the flesh will reap destruction. Whoever sows to please the spirit from the spirit or He reap eternal life, let us not become weary and well doing for the proper time or the fullness of time we will reap a harvest. Justice. You have a justice opportunity by planting and harvesting that does not exist with your policies. God, give us justice in California. Give us justice in our schools. Give us justice in our education. What seeds have you planted and what harvest are you expecting that proves it? Because justice is manifested in the Earth a few ways, but one of them is through harvest.

That’s good. Yeah, good. So here’s my question. When was the last time we prayed for people to have an anointing for politics? When was the last time we prayed for people to run for student government, of places of seats in our county? When was the last time we had an altar call for people who said, I’m called to the greatest sense of darkness?

We got all kinds of opportunities in church, but where are the seeds of justice being promoted? Yeah, said, okay, this is all I’ve got to God’s changing. The plan. And he’s moving us from a sphere to a plant. You. And he’s looking for farmers who carry that heart because he carries a farmer’s heart. You know what you are.

You are the justice of the harvest of the farmers’ faith. Because he came and gave a seed once and for all, believing that you would one day be wooed by his spirit to a yes. And you are now the harvest are the first fruits of God. So you justify God.

You’re welcome for that to.

Because harvest is always the justice of God at work. So here’s what I’m looking for in the body of Christ and what I believe he’s saying. I believe he’s challenging us, that it’s time to plant number two. We must have faith to plant. We must have faith to plant. Do you know what I realized? I love Genesis, the book of Genesis in general, but I love Genesis 26 with Isaac.

Isaac comes in. He’s had like a pretty big to do. His wife has been trying to be given over to the ruler of the day. He’s scared, he’s ill-equipped. And then there’s this interact in between the two of them, and Isaac gets found out that his wife is actually. Oh, look at it. There it is. There is a it’s so good.

You guys are so good. There was a famine in the land besides the first famine. That was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to a king of the Philistines. Now, this is all I put on here, because I just wanted you to see this. Don’t put 12 up yet.

The Bible says in verse one that there was a famine in the land. Verse two through 11 gives you a story about Isaac. Basically, Isaac’s fear. That’s the story. It’s ten verses of how fearful Isaac is. So it tells you in the front there’s a bad famine. Two through 11 tells you about basically how Isaac has no faith.

His wife gets offered to up the Bible. He doesn’t want to tell a Bible that it’s his wife because he fears his death. He fears being cast out. And then a bit of luck figures it out. He comes back and says, you are crazy. I almost up with your wife. That’s how the story goes. Why we don’t have more movies about the Bible.

I don’t understand.

Then verse 12, that little thing gets in between 1 and 12. Now verse 12, Then Isaac sowed in that land. Now I want to put some context here. Isaac is fearful for his life in this land.

He’s fearful. He is not. He’s a foreigner. This ain’t his place. There’s a drought, there’s a famine. There’s no need for him to be in this place. Except God told him to be here. But his faith has not risen to the full level of occupancy. He’s almost given up. His wife just to stay alive. My husband would be dead by that very act.

Amalek is not his problem.

It’s the reconvening with me. But verse 12 says that he planted even in the midst of all of those contrary environments. Put it back up, please. In verse 12 he sowed, and he reached the same year a hundred fold. Planting seed. And being a farmer is one of the best ways to display your faith.

Do you want to know what we’ve decided to do in England? There are tons of problems, just like there are in California. Tons of them. Policies, things being taught in our school systems, our children being educated in ways that we would not agree with that are pleasing to God. There are constantly unfolding words being defined by culture that we’re having to take back.

Like words like anxious and depression and mental health that we’re constantly having to redeem the definition from. Because if we don’t redeem it, then our people will begin to see the solution through the definition that’s been provided for them by the culture they live in. Good. But let me tell you how we are doing that, and how I believe the body of Christ is supposed to do that in this season.

And now I believe Word of life is supposed to do that. Good.

Oh, you oh, you plan to some tares? That’s okay. You thought you got in my field. See, God got so faithful. He’s going to let things grow up for a little while. Then he’s going to come get that stuff out. But I’m going to tell you what. I got more fields to go. I’m outpacing you. Not with my warring techniques, not with my voice.

Not with how many things I can put on social media about how I disagree with you. This is not about trying to get into a verbal war. I’m going to just put my energy in to being seed for. So the question becomes, when was the last time you asked God to fill you again with seed? So. We are so used to asking God to bring us a harvest, and I may days dare say to you and challenge you with every bit of me, that the greater harvest for you will come when you’ve got more seed to sow.

Good. You think you got my feel. Do you think we’ve, we’ve we’ve had a city center church. Becky and Chad can tell you hell has come against our city center church. You know why? Because we’re in the center of the city as a spirit-filled church. And the spirit of hell hates that. Hates our proximity to justice. Yeah.

I walk by our governmental offices of our county every day, getting to our church. Every day. You know what I do?

I don’t have any reason to put a promotion together. I don’t have to get up and put a picket sign together. I don’t have to wear a t-shirt. I just got to take over their soil with the soil of God, with the weapon God has given me and plant seeds.

Because planting takes faith. Y’all okay? Can you give me ten more minutes? Planting takes faith, but discernment is what comes with harvest. Planting takes your faith, but it is determined that teaches you how to harvest. I love Isaiah 28 because it I can’t go there. I don’t have time. But Isaiah 28 talks. You can go there on your own, on your own time, 2024 to 29.

It basically is the word of the Lord and it’s coming in. It says, do I plant the same thing the same way, and do I harvest it with the same tools? And he goes through 3 or 4 different types of seeds, and how some seeds can be harvested in some ways, while other seeds cannot be harvested that way.

May I suggest to you that one of the greatest troubling places we have in the body of Christ as mature believers is that we keep trying to harvest the same way.

But may I also suggest that if you will go back and give your discerning eye to Isaiah 24, you will learn that God gives you to harvest techniques and tools that vary based on the seed that was planted. Yeah, yeah, we see I come from a country right now that has a very high Muslim population. We also have a high Hindu population.

This is what I’ve learned about Hindus, and I’m sure David could tell me the same thing is that they don’t have any problem receiving Jesus because they’ve got 3 million already saying, that’s it. That’s right. So the harvest is not hard if you’re using the same techniques with everyone because they’ve got every other God with them. The issue isn’t the addition.

The issue is the subtraction. That’s right.

In Hinduism, the key to a salvation experience with the Lord we serve is not based on adding Jesus to your repertoire of other gods. That’s not hard. Faith for them. What gets complicated is when you say he’s the only God, but that’s a different technique. Yeah, because some people you’re going to walk around with into, well, let me guarantee they never heard of God in their life.

All other people, they’ve been in church for 50 years and they just don’t know him. The techniques of harvest change based on the seeds that were planted, which is why when you are both planting and harvesting, you can have the faith to plant and the discernment to harvest and go, yeah, I’ve had to change some things, even about the way we receive people for baptism, because I’ve come to realize that people are living with so many multi religions in their life that they don’t even understand the quality of what happens in baptism.

But see, I grew up in the Bible Belt where it looked like 90.90 9.9999999% had been at church at some time in their life, but right now, the lady that does my hair has never walked in a church in her life. Doesn’t even ever heard the story of Jesus. This is a true story, she said to me the first time I met her.

Who do you work for? I said, a very wealthy philanthropist.

Because she knew I traveled and she said, really? What does he do? I said many,
Many things. She said, does he have a lot of money? I said, an outrageous amount of money.

She said, do you have a picture of him? I said, I can describe him exactly to you. She said, what’s his name? I said, Jesus. She said, really? Is he Hispanic? It’s true. God honest truth. I put nothing on that. Some of y’all would do well to take a trip somewhere like that.

Oh, yeah, because your harvest is in the same spirit.

Let me tell you something. The church is always ten years behind in understanding what’s happening in the world. I spent the last ten years fighting it, right? Instead of planting seed for the harvest they want from it, it takes discernment to get the right harvest. Can I go just a bit further and then I’ll be done?

I want to take you to something important. James chapter four, verses 13 through 17 in the Passion Translation. “Listen, those of you who are boasting, ‘Today or tomorrow we’ll go to another city, we’ll spend some time, we’ll go into business, we’ll make heaps of profit,’ but you don’t have a clue what tomorrow may bring. For your fleeting life is but a warm breath of air that’s visible in the cold only for a minute and then vanishes. Instead, you should say, ‘Our tomorrows are in the Lord’s hands, and if he is willing, we will live life to its fullest and do this or that.’ But here you are, boasting in your ignorance, for to be presumptuous about what you’ll do tomorrow is evil. Procrastination is a form of sin.”

It’s a form of sin because you’re believing that tomorrow is available for what you refuse to do today.

One of the ways the enemy is trapping the body of Christ is indecision that leads to procrastination. Now I’m going to talk to you for real now. Now, I want to be apostolic. We don’t have time to sort out whose idea in the room is best. We don’t have time for that. We don’t have time to just talk about how good your ministry is, get it off the ground, and give you the support you need. We don’t have time for that because procrastination is a sin.

What we have to pray for is that today, God, you will give us the manifested grace to understand our mission in such a clarity and way, in such a DNA fashion, that you will illuminate it to everyone involved so that we can say yes today without the indecision of waiting till tomorrow. Indecisions are often the result of our unwillingness to say no to someone.

Now, are y’all okay? All right. I know this is a corporate word, and you can come back next Sunday. Somebody’s gonna love on you. But I’m gonna get on a plane on Wednesday, and I’m gonna tell you something. I have to leave this with you because things are changing here. We’re going to do things in partnership. But that whole idea where we have group decision-making is going away.

You’re welcome for that, too. Come on, let me round my corner. Here’s the thing: the Bible says we take for granted today’s opportunity by trying to make it perfect for tomorrow.

Listen to me. The world is messy, and it won’t even know if you’re messy because your mess is still cleaner than their mess. What you think is messy is still clean and clear to people who are actually in a mess. So it would be better for you to get a little dirt on you in the dig than it is for you to wait till you have the perfect uniform to go out into the field.

But I would rather deal with people’s yes thanIt feels so unbridled. Then wait for a yes.

It’s your season, Word of Life.

Why did God give you fivefold gifts? Not just so you can be an example, but because you have the farmer’s toolkit. To work as an equipped body to get out into Waltham County and to the regions He’s sending you to. Not with fighting gear, not with just purchasing gear, not with just outreach gear, but with farming gear.

So how do we get seeds in this ground? How do we discern what’s harvesting now? How do we know the season and the time? So we know what to pluck when and what to plant next? Who is on the assignment of planting? Who’s on the assignment of reaping? Who is where? In our ministry, it’s pretty simple.

When you realize you’re a farmer, your techniques don’t just change, but what you teach changes because you’re going to teach people that dirt is good. Dirt is good. You have to teach people repetition is good.

Okay, we’ve been doing this for a while. Pastor Shirley, when are we going to get off this train? I feel like we’re starting to feel like we’re in the Green Mile or something.

So you teach. You teach differently because you’re teaching the endurance not of your faith in the burn, but the endurance of what it takes to plant for our next generation. You’re going to change Tuolumne County. When seeds of harvest are planted in politics, education, and your government. When you have teenagers that say, I’m not afraid of putting my seed in the seat of counsel.

Right now, we’re looking over our young people, not just for this gift—who’s going to be the evangelist? Not that that’s wrong; it’s just incomplete. Who’s going to be the missionary? Who’s going to be this? No, no, no, no. Do you have what it takes to put policy into place? How can we guide you? I see your passion for justice for those who are taken advantage of.

How can I sow into that? I speak over my young people. You could ask Becky; when I see them, I talk to her son about being my future elder all the time. He’s 35 because he’s a wise man. God made him to be wise. I say to him, you’re a wise man. You’re going to be on our council one day. God’s going to use you because of your wisdom. Your wisdom is going to come out and be displayed for the body of Christ. I know you do these things. I’m trying to commission you to do them further and beyond just the church. So that you can say, who’s the educators in the room? Right? Who’s the artists in the room?

When is there going to be an art gallery in the middle of Sonora that’s given by Word of Life, where it represents the goodness of God, and people come in and say, how did this picture change my life? I’m the artist in the room. Yes.

I don’t need to change Sonora Valley by what? Weaponry of warfare in a sword. I have to take my artisans and go. We’re going to help you get a place downtown because when you do art, it changes people’s lives. When people walk in a room and see what you made, it shifts the atmosphere. Are you getting this? Who are the musicians that are starting the music academies?

Who are the people who are infiltrating Tuolumne County with a shepherd’s knowledge and teaching children how to cook? Yeah. And not everything that looks spiritual has to be sacred, right? Right. And I will say it like, Dad, just to finish us up: Everything in the earth is sacred until it’s desecrated, right? And we have let the world desecrate because we have vacated our space.

Arts are sacred. Dance is sacred. Music is sacred. Politics, even in the crazy zone, belongs to God. Education is sacred.

And photography is sacred.

Technology is sacred. I’ll end with this, and then I’m going to invite you to respond. If you want to be a farmer with me, if you’re ready to beat your sword into a plow, get busy with the work that God demands of this generation—the dirt, the repetition, the endurance of what’s not pretty.

The Bible says of David, when David defeated Goliath with obviously the weapons he was familiar with, the Bible says he had no sword. I love that little verse because it’s not indicating when he tried on Saul’s armor. It says it after he killed Goliath, it says, and he had no sword. So he went to Saul’s chief and used his.

Can I leave you with this thought? The generation that’s going to make the most difference in the earth is not the one who carries the weapon but knows how to use the weapons of the world against themselves.

So you don’t have to carry like Saul. You’ve got to be able to pull theirs out of their arsenal and use it to defeat them.

And God’s about to give supernatural guidance to this house. He’s about to take you on a farming journey with creative ideas. Okay, Pastor Chuck, He’s about to take you into arenas that don’t look like they seem godly enough. They seem a little secular, but they’re about to be the very nature of the planting of the seed of harvest that you are preparing for.

Do you know what I hope happens over the next five years of this house? I hope five years from now, when I come back and drive down Sonora and I drive down Tuolumne County and I go into Twain Harte—I know we’re not the only church, but I’m speaking to this one—I hope that by God’s grace, I see Word of Life stamped everywhere.

Not because it says Word of Life, but because there’s a Word of Life member having a business there, and there’s a Word of Life member offering music lessons there, and there’s a Word of Life member teaching photography there. And before long, I can’t even go eat my favorite Mexican food before I’ve passed by five Word of Life businesses that are doing the work of the Kingdom.

He’s changing the tactics that we’ve been accustomed to. He’s pulling us out and He’s making us farmers. Because one day this will not be a place known as the natural gold rush. This will be a place known as the deep end of the Gold of God that has been established by ordinary people who don’t have anything more than what they know, but they use what they know to farm a harvest.