AdAgrA 2018: Something Better

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Morning Devotional

Jake Harraway

Why Trials are Important

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your love and your protection, for giving us all safe traveling mercies, and for waking us up this morning.

I pray, Father, that as we have our morning devotion, that you will send your Holy Spirit to be with us, to open our hearts and our minds to accept the things you'd like to teach us.

Well as I was thinking about what to share this morning, I was in prayer last week and the Lord brought something to my mind that is very important, especially for farmers, to learn and to understand.

And I want to share that with you because it's something that I personally struggle with, but also something that the Lord has been teaching me and helping me grow in.

The title of my message this morning is, Why Trials Are Important.

If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Luke.

And it says, And He said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, neither for your body what ye shall put on.

The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.

Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which neither have storehouses nor barns, and God feedeth them.

How much more are ye better than the fowls?

And which of you, taking thought, can add to his stature 1 cubit.

If he then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take he thought for the rest?

They toil not, they spin not, and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like 1 of these.

If then God so clothed the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is cast in the oven, how much more will he clothe ye, O ye of little faith?" As the Lord brought me to this text, I was immediately struck with the importance and the emphasis on how much the Lord provides for us.

The passage really is trying to underscore the fact that nature never worries about where they're going to sleep, never worries about how they're going to eat, never worries about anything that they need because the Lord always takes care of them.

And so as the Lord was impressing me with these things, I just kept wondering what this had to do with the thought process and the struggles I was going through at the moment.

It says, consider the lilies, how they grow.

And so a logical conclusion to that text was, Well, how do lilies grow?

Because it was the Bible saying, consider how lilies grow and then it gives, you know, how the Lord provides for them.

So I took the liberty of looking up how lilies grow and their growth process And I came away with 3 very key points that were helpful for me.

The first 1 is that lilies grow best after an extended period of cold.

As I was looking up how to plant lilies, the site that I looked up said that they do best if you plant them in late fall, early spring, when they have an extended period of a few months where it's very cold, like it freezes and the ground is cold and the seeds have time to, it helps the seeds to germinate better.

The second thing I found out was if you want lilies to look nice all season long during their growing season, you have to continually prune them.

They kind of have their flowers, set their flowers, and then after a while the flowers start dying back.

But if you want them to continue to look nice, you have to continually pick off all the dead flowers so that the plants still look like they're green and full.

And the last thing is, once the season has ended in the late fall or in the early spring, all the dead foliage needs to be cut down to the ground in preparation for the next year's growth.

So how do these things help us further understand the scripture?

So we have in Luke 12 many descriptions of different things, but what the Lord is trying to tell us in verse 27 is even though He's providing all our necessities, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will be necessarily an easy road or that We will always have or always feel like everything is going well and everything is doing nice and whatever.

He's trying to tell us that sometimes he has to use things that don't feel good to us and don't seem to fit with what we're trying to do in order to place us in a situation and to strengthen our characters in order for us to move forward.

A few months ago I was, I think my sister, who is very much into poetry, found this poem that I felt was a very good illustration of this point that I'm trying to make, and I want to read it to you.

It's by Russell Keffler, and it's called Wait.

It says, desperately, helplessly, longingly I cried.

I pleaded and I wept for a clue to my fate.

And the master so gently said, child, you must wait.

Is your hand shortened or have you not heard?

By faith I have asked, and I'm claiming your word.

My future and all to which I relate hangs in the balance, and you tell me to wait?

I'm needing a yes, a go-ahead sign, or even a no, to which I can resign.

And Lord, you have promised that if we believe, we need but ask, and we shall receive.

And Lord I've been asking and this is my cry I'm wearing I'm asking I need a reply.

Then quietly softly I learned my fate as my master replied once again you must wait.

So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taught, and grumbled to God, so I'm waiting for what?

He seemed to kneel, and his eyes met with mine, And he tenderly said, I could give you a sign.

I could shake the heavens, darken the sun, raise the dead, cause the mountains to run.

All you see I can give, and pleased you'd be, but you'd have what you'd want, but you wouldn't know me.

You'd know the depth, you would not know the depth of my love for each saint.

You'd not know the power that I give to the faint.

You'd not learn to see through clouds of despair.

You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there.

You'd not know the joy of resting in me when darkness and silence was all you could see.

You would never experience that fullness of love as a piece of my spirit descends like a dove.

You would not know that I give and save for a start, but you'd not know the depth of the beat of my heart.

The glow of my comfort late in the night, the faith that I give when you walk without sight, the depth that's beyond getting just what you ask from an infinite God who makes what you have last.

And you never know should your pain quickly flee What it means that my grace is sufficient for thee.

Yes, your dreams for that loved 1 or night could come true, but the loss if you lost what I'm doing in you.

So be silent, my child, and in time you will see that the greatest of gifts is to get to know me.

And though oft may my answers seem terribly late, my most precious answer of all is still, wait." That's a very, a very hard answer to to get when you're really struggling and you're really in need of some answers.

I know I've been there myself and as I was still struggling with my own problems, the Lord brought me to another text that really helped me even more.

If you have your Bibles, let's turn to 2 Timothy.

It says, "...Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Christ Jesus." That's our calling.

Our calling is not to Feel like we're entitled to an easy life.

To feel as though we could use God as a vending machine and ask Him for whatever we want and expect Him to answer.

As we have surrendered our life to Christ, We are to do here what Paul has instructed Timothy to do.

I'm going to end with Galatians chapter 6.

Actually I think I'm going to start with verse 7.

Galatians 6 and verse 7 says, Be not deceived, God is not mocked.

For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

For he that soweth to his flesh shall reap flesh, the flesh of corruption.

He that soweth to the spirit shall the spirit reap everlasting life.

And let us not be weary in doing well, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.

And that's what I want to leave you all with this morning.

You all will be hearing a lot of good information over this weekend.

I love coming to these conferences all the time and I just I love to garden and I just enjoy learning from people who've had more experience than I have.

But let us always keep in mind that this is Not necessarily an easy path.

We're going to run into hiccups, hardships, but it's just the Lord wanting to work things out in our own characters.

David Obermiller

The Parable of the Fig Tree

Our Father in heaven, I want to thank you.

If you look at the parable of the fig tree, it is a story of grace, a story of mercy.

And I just pray that you would bless us with that this morning.

It should give us your presence and that you'd be our teacher.

Lord, I'm not fit to teach anyone here and we're undeserving of even being shared with from a certain perspective.

But because you're gracious to us, we ask that you would bless us with your presence, that you would bless us with your love and your hand upon us.

As we read the story here this morning, as we open the scriptures, that your word would speak to us, and that we would see you more clearly.

I'm going to read the whole passage and then we'll come back through it 1 verse at a time, actually take a phrase at a time.

So Luke chapter 13, verse 6, Jesus spoke this parable, a certain man had a fig tree planted in his where?

And he came and sought fruit from it and found none.

Then he said unto the dresser of the vineyard, behold, these 3 years I have come seeking fruit on this tree and find none.

And he, now make sure you're contextually reading, Who is he here in verse 8?

That's the keeper or the dresser if you're reading the King James.

The keeper answered and said unto him, Lord leave it alone this year also, and I'll dig around it and dung it, and if it bear fruit, well, good.

And if not, then after that you can cut it down.

So again, we'll read the verse 1 more time.

He, Jesus, spoke this parable saying a certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard.

And I want to ask you a question, I have a lot of questions this morning, I'm not just going to give all the answers.

A little bit louder, I heard a couple other answers too.

You kind of have to ask the question because who's the dresser then in the next verse?

My understanding of this, the way I read this, is that the certain man that is the land owner is God the Father, and that the dresser or the keeper of the vineyard is Christ his son.

It says a certain man, God the Father, had a fig tree.

It wasn't in a fig yard, it was in a vineyard Isaiah 5 verse 7 the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Judah his pleasant plant and He looked for judgment, but behold oppression and for righteousness But behold a cry And Ellen White writes in Christ's object lessons, the generation to whom the Savior had come were represented by the fig tree in the Lord's vineyard within the circle of his special care and blessing.

That's page 214 from Christ's object lessons.

So God had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and that vineyard symbolized that circle of his care and his blessing.

Now he came, it says in verse 6, and he was seeking fruit from his fig tree.

Because what else would you do with a fruit tree in your yard?

I worked with a landscaper, a friend of mine in Arizona for a few years, he told me the story once of a man who had a grapefruit tree in his backyard.

He received this call from this customer and he said, ìHey, Iíve got this tree.

Itís not producing fruit.î And he says, ìWell, what do you want?

You want an ornamental or you want fruit and the guy I've said, of course I want Why because it's a It's a fruit tree Wasn't a pyracantha or an ornamental of some type so he came He was seeking fruit and the problem is that he found how much?

Again from Christ's object lessons, 1 page later, 215, Helen White writes, God and his son had been seeking fruit.

Of course, this clarifies the earlier question.

I asked who's the landowner, who's the dresser?

God and his son Had been seeking fruit and had found none Israel was a cumber of the ground Its very existence a curse For it filled the place in the vineyard that a fruitful tree might fill Now if you're a There's a dicing or is here you're farming professionally as a career.

Yours your livelihood is based on your farm, right?

Not asking dollars per acre, but value per square foot.

Do you plant things into your farm that merely take up space and keep it from being productive?

I'm learning the value of land every foot.

I like the way she says this it was taking up space Its existence was a curse for it filled the place in the vineyard that a fruitful tree might fill.

How do you feel about things that cost you money?

As a farmer, what do you do with something that's taking up land but not giving you anything back?

You see this all the time in California where I'm from.

They might be growing cotton and they, you know, decide to tear out all of their cotton and put in almonds or in some cases they are growing pistachios and almonds become more valuable or walnuts as they tear out all their trees.

You can see them bulldozing acres and acres and acres and acres and acres of land because some other crop is more profitable or more productive or the times and seasons have changed and the market has moved on to something different.

She says it robbed the world of the blessings that God designed to give.

The Israelites had misrepresented God among the nations.

They were not merely useless, but they were a decided hindrance.

To a great degree the religion was misleading and worked ruin instead of salvation Let's go to verse 7 again How do you feel about the fig tree right now?

Just describe to me your feelings about this fig tree that's taking up space.

It's not only unproductive, it's, She says it's a curse.

It's got it coming Somebody else how do you feel about the fig tree?

Frustrated What was that eliminated I want it out of my life, yeah Say it 1 more time Use it as a shed Oh shade, okay Anybody else Sad?

Alan Seiler

Active Grace

I'm reminded of a story that I heard actually it was It was a little video kind of a dramatized version of the life of Martin Luther and of course I'm gonna stay this story before Yeah, thanks for the reminder mom.

It's a story of and Martin Luther was of course as as some of us might know had this experience where he was on the road and this lightning came down and he prayed to God that if he wouldn't, if he would spare his life, he would give his life to the monastic lifestyle.

And of course that started him on a very dark experience in his life where he was trying to be just with God in his own works.

And anyways, to the point that his upper people that, you know, were kind of his higher-ups were very concerned about him, because he was so focused on trying to be right with God and and all this kind of stuff and anyways in this dramatized version his higher-ups basically says I'm going to send you to Wittenberg to teach so that basically you know teach the Word of God and Luther says how can I teach the Word of God when I don't have an experience worth sharing and the guy looked back at him and said we preach best what we need to learn most and That's my experience hopefully with this this morning I preach best but I need to learn this the most of all So hopefully it will be a blessing?

Let's pray dear Father in heaven We just want to thank you Lord for this opportunity to be here at this conference, Lord, for this agriculture.

Lord, I just pray that my testimony that you have led me on through agriculture, through this experience might touch hearts, that it might transform us, and it might connect us with the power that you desire for us to have in our lives and Your name we ask amen So a few weeks ago I Woke up in the middle of the night and I had a pain in my chest radiating out very painful and my stomach was in knots.

You see I had just returned from the GYC conference and we are in the process of starting a very small farm and there's a lot of work involved in that and The time for planting is coming very close and there's a lot to accomplish and Coming back from from GYC.

I knew that the work was waiting me at home.

And when I got home, I started kind of writing a list.

And the list overwhelms me currently right now of everything that needs to be accomplished for this season to take place.

And so I got stressed and anxious and worried.

I knew why I woke up in the middle of the night with my chest hurting.

It was some sort of panic attack I guess you could say.

I like being down here with you guys better.

You know, these conversations that go on back and forth here in your mind, said, why, why Lord, why?

He's like, come on, Alan, don't be so, don't be so, dumb, yeah, thank you.

He says the thing is is that if this farm doesn't pull off the way you think it should It's going to hurt your pride You don't care about your customers.

You only care about yourself, and that's why you're stressed.

The thing is, is Alan, the reality of the matter is, is that your value and what you consider is important, your personal worth is connected with your performance.

You're not allowing me to Set your value.

You're trying to protect it yourself Okay, very sobering.

And of course that Didn't help me sleep either Exactly, but it's important and And so I started doing a little bit of introspection.

And I can remember another time when I had this anxiety feeling in my life.

I can distinctly remember being a 10 year old or 9 year old in Sabbath school and being asked to read a scripture and being very nervous, you see I was not a very good reader.

And I felt like, I mean there were other people, other young people in our church, younger than me, you know, 5, 6, that were reading beautifully, and I could not add up to that standard.

And so, whether it was expressed directly, or it was taken through osmosis from the surroundings.

We all learn at a very young age, at least from this world, that our value is in proportion to our performance and we will do anything to protect our value.

We have resentment because we have taken on what God never intended us to take on.

You see, this doesn't just start in our childhood, started a long time ago.

Actually, the first time anyone really had a problem with this, as far as humans are concerned, was that the tree of the knowledge and good of evil?

God came to Eve, sorry not God, the devil came to Eve and he said, did God not really say that you should eat of this tree?

Because he knows in the day that you eat of, your eyes will be open and you will be as God as if God was withholding something.

The thing is, is that we naturally default to protecting ourselves, our values, when our relationship with our heavenly father is in question.

The thing is, is that Eve felt like she couldn't trust God to look out for her.

This is what the deception of the devil, this is why it's so powerful, is because when when we don't believe that God will take care of us, that God has our best interest in mind, that God is where our value resides.

But the problem is, is that we were never meant to bear the burden of our own value.

That was something that God wanted to bear for us, but unfortunately, in the case of our parents, that all changed.

So not only did we learn this from childhood from those around us, but it's something that we've inherited for centuries.

The problem with that is that you're born with it.

And of course, this opens an entire new can of worms Because when you're born with something you kind of stuck with it But in God's goodness and we all know this he came to set things straight through his son.

And yes, God comes to pardon our past experiences, but he comes to eradicate this systemic idea that has That was started at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as far as humanity is concerned.

That's your performance equals your value That's the problem That is the problem that performance equals value and that our value We and because of that because we have to look out for ourselves, therefore we have all these problems.

But here's the thing, is that I noticed and I know and I have tried as hard as I try to get rid of this self-preservation mentality.

I have prayed, Lord, empty me of this selfishness, empty me of this mindset that I am the 1 responsible for my success, my worth, my value, but it still keeps coming.

So I want to share with you Something that my sister and I have been experiencing for the past few months that has been very powerful in this area and It comes back to grace now when we think of grace Just a second here when we think of grace we think of unmerited favor That's usually what I thought about grace, but in the Bible there's 2 definitions for grace, okay?

The first definition, of course, is unmerited unmerited favor.

The second, though, that Paul reflects is something that's called active grace, or we like to call active grace.

And active grace is the power that God gives us to recover our minds from the deception, this deception that we have to protect ourselves, that our value intrinsically comes from our performance.

This is what I was experiencing on my farm, this idea that, Lord, if you don't, sorry, if this season doesn't come off, if I can't organize things off, this reflects on me as a person, and therefore I will look stupid and foolish to my customers, to my family, all these types of things.

And so we find in Romans 5 verse 21, and this is the principle of active grace.

This is where the definition really becomes the power of God to transform our hearts and minds.

It says, as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ, our Lord.

This mindset, this mindset of self-preservation, this mindset of sin, has it been powerful in your existence?

It's reigned in my body, This idea that I must protect myself and it has made my life miserable and I know it's made my life miserable because I get up in the morning sometimes and I have an agenda of what needs to happen this day and someone in my family crossed that agenda and I'm upset.

I'm mad that this happens but God has provided as sin has rained as this concept in our body has rained powerfully unto death so grace much more unto life And so this is where active grace comes into play.

As powerful as sin has been in your life, as like Paul says, the good that I would, I don't.

And the things that I don't want to do that I do.

Who shall deliver me from this body of death?

The body of death is this misconception that we've inherited and that we have learned in this world That somehow our performance translates to our value.

And every sin comes out of this misconception.

Why do you think pornography is so popular?

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