AdAgrA 2023: Digging Deeper

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Plenary

Kameron DeVasher

Why Was Jesus Always Talking About Plants?

I know this is the ninth Ad Agra convention that has been held, and this is my very first 1 actually getting to attend.

Honestly, I'm happy to be presenting, but I'm just as eager to go see what other people are presenting while we're here.

So I'm very, very excited to be here this morning, and I am from Madison, Tennessee, God's beautiful farm, but I currently live in the state of Michigan, and any time a call comes to speak somewhere outside of Michigan to the south of Michigan day in January and February we know that it is the Lord's will that we go.

So I want to thank you for your hospitality.

Our 3 kids are here and we're going to be gleaning and learning all along the way, and we're just privileged to be with you this morning.

We're gonna have a message this morning, starting off called, Why Was Jesus Always Talking About Plants?

It's a legitimate question that applies not just because we're here at an agriculture convention, this is a vital question all of us need to wrestle with and examine more closely Christ's life and ministry and methodology and how it applies to our lives and our work for Him.

And we're gonna study God's Word each day, and we're gonna build on this theme and dig deeper, appropriately enough, into this concept each day as we go along.

So this morning we're giving the overview, and the next couple of mornings we're gonna dig it out deeper, flesh it out more fully, and by God's grace, not only be inspired, but informed, and more than that even, be transformed into the likeness of Jesus.

But before we begin any study of God's Word, what should we do first?

Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this beautiful day.

Thank you for the occasion that brings us together.

Thank you for the friends and family you have around.

But most importantly, thank you for Jesus and his word.

Lord, we ask today that you would fulfill the promise given so long ago, that where 2 or 3 are gathered, there you are in the midst, and that you will send your Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth.

Please take out your Bibles, or your digital Bibles if you would and we're going to go to Luke chapter 4.

Now there's going to be most everything is going to be on the screen but you can't only can't put everything on the screen and technology might fail from time to time so should we always come armed with the word amen and we're going to go to Luke chapter 4 if you would please to try to answer the question why was Jesus always talking about plants?

In Luke chapter 4, towards the very beginning of Jesus' ministry, he returns home, and we can find this in verse 16 of Luke chapter 4, it says, so he came to Nazareth, comma, where he had been brought up.

Now, I emphasize that reading because it does not just say, comma, his hometown, or comma, where he was from.

More generally, it's something specific happened to him there.

And what was it that happened to him there?

He was brought up where he had been brought up.

Now, interesting, juxtapose that with the next phrase, and as his custom was.

So notice this, Jesus has a custom in his life that was instilled by his upbringing, right?

So he goes back to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as his custom was he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath Day and stood up to read.

Notice Jesus' habit that was instilled from childhood was not only church attendance, but church participation from a very early age.

And now he carries that into his adulthood and even his public ministry, and he stands up to read.

And he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

And notice it doesn't say it was already open to the place.

He found the place where it was, he was looking for something specific, which we today know is Isaiah chapter 61.

And notice how as he reads there those first verses of Isaiah 61, how the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, verse 18, because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, and he goes on to quote the opening verses of Isaiah 61.

Now the significance of that was, that was not just that day's scripture reading, because he searched that particular passage out for a reason.

And he goes on to explain why it was so significant.

Then he closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.

And all the eyes who were in the synagogue were fixed on him.

And he began to say to them, Today this scripture...

Now notice he doesn't say the scriptures, though all the scriptures point forward to Jesus Christ, right?

He said this scripture, Isaiah chapter 61 as we know it today.

This scripture, he says, is fulfilled in your hearing.

Jesus himself specifically found what we today know as the 61st chapter of Isaiah and said, this is my mission statement.

Now that's significant because when you go back in the scriptures to Isaiah chapter 61, if you would do so quickly, you will notice that it, of course, has those passages that Jesus just read, but it concludes with what I want to share with you this morning.

And it answers the question, why was Jesus always talking about plants?

Because when Jesus would go through his ministry, he would give lots of parables.

Everyday matters, tending sheep, catching fish, saving money, but over and over and over, he would go back to agriculture, sowing, seeds, harvest, crops.

All these themes were running through Jesus.

Now, it was an agrarian society, that's true, but I believe there's a deeper reason than it was just handy.

I think there's a deeper lesson Jesus wanted to draw out and we find it in Isaiah chapter 61.

Notice as you read through, verses 1 and 2 is what we see quoted in the Gospel of Luke, but as you read through the rest of that chapter, it concludes with this interesting statement.

For as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes things that are sown in it to spring forth, so." Now I know this isn't an English class, but notice the construction of the language here.

In the same way, the garden represents how something's going to happen.

For as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so in the same manner, in the same way, the Lord God will cause what to happen?

Righteousness and praise to spring forth where?

Now in Jesus' 3 and a half years of public ministry or 30 plus years of personal ministry here on the earth, Did the gospel go to all the world by Jesus himself?

But was it God's intent that the gospel will go to all the world?

Well, just like a garden, that's how righteousness and praise will spring forth before all nations in a process akin to gardening.

This was why Jesus was always talking about plants.

Because there's a deeper significance than he just happened to look down like, oh, there's a head of corn, let's talk about that.

He was implanting an idea in our minds, a structure, a method for spreading the gospel around the world.

I believe that Jesus wants us to work in evangelism like we work in the garden.

We're going to talk about that this week.

So just as the agricultural cycle includes 5 essential steps, soil preparation, seed planting, and the cultivation, harvest, and preservation of the crop, in the cycle of evangelism, these sequential steps are essential for true success in reaching people.

There are 5 distinct steps that match both agricultural success and evangelistic success.

They must be done in order, and you can't miss any of them if you're gonna have the best or true success, as Sister White would call it, in reaching the people.

The burden of today's presentation is to give the overview of these 5 steps and what it looks like in our own lives and in our local churches.

And then in the subsequent days, we're going to dig deeper into certain aspects of this.

Tomorrow's message, by the way, is called Our Soul Winning Bottleneck.

That I believe there's elements of this cycle that we almost strategically avoid, but God intends for us to do.

But number 1, step number 1, preparing the soil.

Now before we get into the spiritual aspect of this, imagine you were given a plot of acreage, an inheritance somehow, and you came across some land, or you bought it and it was raw land, it had never been developed.

You would probably not go out and just start dropping seeds on the ground.

I'm guessing there's a seminar here this week which will tell you that that would be wrong.

That your very first thing, if you're going to anticipate a harvest, is you've got to start working with the what?

Daniel Nicholls

From Pot Grower to Gardening Teacher

I'm gonna pray 1 more time really quick before we get started and then be happy to share.

Father in heaven, thank you for the privilege and the opportunity to be able to share what you have done.

Lord, thank you for what you have given each 1 of us.

And I ask for your spirit now as I share what you have done for me.

I pray for us all to have understanding, including myself, that we may hear from you this evening.

I thank you for hearing me, in Jesus' name, amen.

Alrighty, so, as the title would have you believe, It is true, the rumors are true.

My first foray into gardening, I was not, well I was a market gardener, but I was not growing salad greens or beets or any of those kinds of things.

But let's go back a little bit further than that even.

A little bit hard to tell, but I am This 1 on the left.

My dad gave my brother and I a deep appreciation for nature growing up.

We went backpacking every summer, went to the same place, it was a secret family spot.

It was amazing, A little lake that was fed by snow runoff every summer.

But I was in the Boy Scouts and we did the same thing.

I went to camp every year, learned a lot of things about wilderness conservation and survival techniques.

And my parents were really mean and they wouldn't let me have any game systems.

We had this really old Nintendo, and you can only beat Super Mario Bros.

So many times before you decide, I'm just going to go see what interesting things there are to do outside.

And I was quite content to lounge in wildflowers in front of a lake growing up.

And this remained with me and still is with me to this day.

I love hiking, love backpacking, snowboarding, anything that I can get outside and appreciate nature.

And I didn't realize at the time, but that gardening fell right into that category.

Of course, I didn't discover that until much later.

I'm protecting people's identities, but that's me on the right this time.

And unfortunately, though my mother did do her best to raise my brother and I with Christian values, I found other things more interesting later in my early adult life, which led to drugs and partying and things of that nature.

I discovered that it was much cheaper to grow your own marijuana than it was to buy it.

So after having made that discovery, guess what I started doing?

And now I don't have any pictures of my gardens.

But by this point in time in my life, I was in my early 20s, and I was 1 of 3 partners on a commercial-sized grow.

At this point, I'd been gardening, if you want to call it.

I mean, I was gardening, I think I was gardening.

At this point, this was my fifth year, and we had about a quarter acre that was full.

And by this point in time I had devoured multiple books about the science of gardening, the soil biology, the root exudates and the photosynthetic processes and all of the things, some of the things that Whitmar McConnell was talking about today, I was studying all of that back then.

I was a physics major when I did go to college.

I dropped out and ended up there, but still fascinated, still loved everything about gardening, particularly the fact that I got to be outside.

I got to listen to birds, work with my hands.

I was problem-solving things, building irrigation systems, and taking things that used to be theoretical for me and actually applying them in the garden.

So regardless of what I was doing and where I was at in my life, I believe the Lord winked at my ignorance and actually found ways that in my foolishness, He still found ways to draw me closer to Him.

So due to miraculous circumstances, which I do not have the time to get into, suffice it to say, God made himself known in my life in a very powerful way.

And right before that time, this young lady was the only person in my family that I stayed in regular contact with.

Her and her husband were on 80 acres in the country and they invited me to go stay with them.

I thought they were being very generous, but I was having way too much fun doing what I was doing.

Well, those miraculous circumstances got me to reevaluate my life.

I didn't think that being a drug dealer was a great career choice, so I decided to take them up on their offer.

So, I moved to Oregon and I moved in with my cousins and shortly after that I moved in with my grandmother and this was my home.

So, you can't quite see it, but there's a little shed in the back.

There's a fancy French word that I can't remember.

They had a little hoop house there and the shed on the right there.

I would wake up in the morning and go pick fresh blackberries for my breakfast.

When their strawberries were in season, I would take as many of those as my grandmother would let me.

So I was out, they had 40 acres out in kind of an old growth doug fir forest.

So it was too quiet for somebody who spent a lot of time in the city.

But I learned to love it because again, I had an appreciation of nature going into all of this.

And while I was there at my grandmother's place, oh, this was inside the hoop house, she grew tomatoes, we grew most of our own garlic and potatoes for the year, and through the summer we would grow all of the greens that we could.

And my grandma taught me a lot of other good things like picking up after yourself and cleaning your room.

So I stayed with her for 2 years and I learned a lot.

But 1 of the things that I encountered while I was staying with my grandmother is my cousin and her husband had given me a copy of Steps to Christ.

And I said thank you, I sat it down, didn't touch it for a long time, several months.

But 1 day, after I had been pretty solidly convinced about the truth that the Bible is actually true through, again, a lot of really amazing circumstances.

It had to do with a Walter Weiss special that I saw, some Doug Batchelor things that They just always had them on the TV when I was at their house and I tried to ignore it.

But eventually got my attention and I became convinced.

So I was on my bed, I was praying, okay God, I believe the Bible is true, I believe you are who you claim to be, but what now?

And lo and behold, as I look at this pile of sci-fi novels on my nightstand, Steps to Christ is on top.

I think grandma was cleaning the house and found it.

I don't know which but I choose to believe the second.

So when you open the book, Steps to Christ, this is the first thing you're gonna read.

Nature and Revelation alike testify of God's love to man.

Our Father in heaven is a source of life, wisdom, joy, and then this really caught me too.

Look at the wonderful and beautiful things of nature.

Think of their marvelous adaptation to the needs and happiness, not only of man, but of all living creatures.

I had had an experience with this in my gardens, in my grandmother's garden, now I was actually growing produce.

And in what I had learned about nature before all of this, before I even got into gardening.

Our Soul-Winning Bottleneck

With that introduction, I will say that yes, my name is Cameron and the last name is Devasier, like Frazier, and somebody's already learned something new this morning.

I've heard a bunch of, well, I don't even wanna interject all the other ones that are out there, but this is what, now, it was probably some beautiful, pronounced European name, we believe it was French, Devachay, something like that, but then it got southernized down in the Tennessee and Kentucky region so Devacher's what we've got.

Yesterday was a blessing just to be around, but specifically what I learned in the seminars and workshops, it was great to be here with our family and I'm trusting that you were blessed yesterday and that we have confidence that we're gonna be equally blessed, if not more so today, amen?

So let's start off on a good foot, and we're gonna talk about our soul winning cycle.

Just reminding you what we're going to be talking about.

But every time, before we open God's Word, we must pray.

In fact, Let's just go ahead and do that now.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for another day of life.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here among your people for this particular purpose.

And now Lord as we turn our attention to spiritual things and we seek a clearer knowledge of you and your work for us, we would ask that you would send the Holy Spirit to clear our minds and sharpen our thinking.

And where necessary, Lord, soften our hearts to receive the Word this morning.

Our title today is Our Soul-Winning Bottleneck.

Now, if you were here with us yesterday you remember we talked about how in Jesus' own mission statement that he you know demonstrated he articulated in Luke chapter 4 when at home to Nazareth he said this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing, speaking of himself and his mission.

And he was quoting from what we know today as Isaiah chapter 61.

And at the end of that verse, it said, for as the earth brings forth its bud, and as the garden causes the things that are grown in, so righteousness and peace will spread throughout all the nations.

In the same way the garden grows, so the gospel goes.

And all through his ministry, he used this agricultural metaphor to walk through the gardening soul winning process, what we sometimes refer to as the cycle of evangelism.

So, in quick review before we launch into new material, just as agriculture itself is a cycle, the cycle of evangelism involves sequential steps that are each essential for true success in reaching people.

Now a good Seventh Day Adventist audience will know that phrase, true success in reaching people.

Okay, we're gonna get to that phrase in just a moment now to make genuine disciples of Christ We need to embrace the full cycle of evangelism and what I want to add to as we go deeper today Is that this applies to us individually?

If there were no other Seventh-day Adventists around in the world, there were no local churches, but you were the only 1, you would still have to be a soul winner for Jesus Christ.

Soul winning is not just a corporate undertaking, it's a personal mission.

Every Seventh-day Adventist Christian, every Christian in the world, anyone who's tasted and seen that the Lord is good has a responsibility to share with others.

So we need to understand this cycle, not just for church growth, but for personal soul-winning witnessing.

Okay, But the same model, the same way that you would individually make friends and then share truth and then give Bible studies, that same process is exactly how the church corporately is supposed to grow.

So the same individual model is just replicated with more zeros on the end and expands to the church corporately.

So individually and corporately, we need to have this model in our minds if we're going to have true success in reaching people.

Now, oftentimes, churches don't do this corporate work.

What you'll see is, for instance, if every phase here, The blue represents preparing the soil of the heart.

The brown represents planting the seed in that receptive heart.

The green represents cultivating that interest through Bible study.

The orange represents the harvest phase, where you call for decisions and people make commitments to Jesus Christ, and then the red is preserving that crop through discipleship ministry that not only keeps people in the church, but gets them active in the work themselves, and thus the cycle continues.

But most churches have strengths and weaknesses in this portfolio.

Some will not really do much personal ministry outreach at all, but they'll share lots of literature, that kind of thing.

Or you could have another profile where they really don't do much.

They're kind of low on the beginning part.

They don't really reach out too much, not too much literature, very little Bible study, but they'll make sure to have an evangelistic campaign every year.

Typically, when that doesn't always work well, people will say, evangelism doesn't work.

No, because we've thought of it as a singular event instead of a comprehensive cycle.

Or you could have 1 that they're all about, passing out water bottles and doing really nice disinterested benevolent work very temporal Adventist community services wonderful things are going on they'll do that and then in the fall they'll host an evangelistic campaign it's like well we were nice in the spring and then we did this thing over here, and it didn't work.

They're missing the connective tissue between the cycles.

Now, the key is to recognize that every phase of soul winning is essential, that we need to be comprehensive across the board and balanced in our approach.

So we can't just focus on 1 or 2 areas and neglect the others.

This results in growth bottleneck that limits church growth.

So for instance, in this model that's on the board right here, the bottleneck is not here.

Apparently, there's lots of activity going on in the disinterested, benevolent, temporal, meeting people's felt needs type of ministries.

But then, if it's not followed up with distributing literature or sharing personal testimony or inviting to things, there's no transition to the spiritual.

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Plenary

Sabbath School: Black Box Thinking

Transcript

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