The Gardner | Student Pastor Zach Hammond

resurrection sunday who's having a great time in the lord today amen if you can't preach on easter sunday you might want to check whether or not you can do it or not you know you see that's a lot of a lot of pressure walking up here my lord if we can't get excited today about what god did for us i don't know what else what else to tell you other than he got up if he was in the tomb we might as well close the doors and go home if he was still hanging on the cross we'd be no different than the buddhists or the islamic we'd have a a way of worship and a form of religion but he got up and i'm thankful tonight that i don't serve just any god i serve the king of kings and the lord of lords i serve the god that saved me from the mess that i was in amen it's resurrection sunday and he got up and the stone's still rolling i want to open with this and i this may be as passionate as i get this evening but i read this a couple days ago and i i would give anything to have an email a phone number a p.o box anything i could send this guy that published this article in the new york times this week to shoot him just a little email or shoot him a text message brother weatherly on easter sunday new york times article published this week they chose the headline says we opt out of holy week the man writes god it seems paints with a wide brush huh he paints with a roller in egypt said our rabbi he even killed first-born cattle we killed cows if he were mortal the god of the jews christians and muslims would be dragged to the hague and yet we praise him we emulate him we implore our children to be like him perhaps now as missiles rain down and dead or discovered in mass graves is a good time to stop and emulating this hateful god perhaps we can stop extolling his brutality perhaps now is a good time to teach our children to pass over god to be as unlike him as possible and the headline the main closing and start of the article said killing gods is a good idea i can get behind i would love to just write this fool a little message just telling buddy i don't know what your background is i don't know what your experience is with god who taught you who considered you learned enough to write this foolishness but they've been trying to kill him for years and you chil you chose a week of all weeks to be writing something that's saying hey i can get on the side of killing god i don't know about you but you kill him if you want to you can take him out of your life if you want to you could try to write all the articles you want put all the pen to paper you want post all you want on social media do everything you can do to get him out of your life out of your family's life out of your community i was in new york this week and i'll tell you if anybody needs god to be alive you kill him if you want to you can try to ignore him tonight if you want to you can try to not praise him if you want to but the bottom line is easter's here and he's still alive and he's still well for 2000 years he's been calling you out of darkness into this marvelous light don't kill him let him be alive opt out you can opt out of a lot of things but i wouldn't opt out of that anyways genesis 2 and verse number 7 and the lord god formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul and the lord god planted somebody say planted a garden eastward in eden and there he put the man whom he had formed and out of the ground made the lord god to grow every tree that is pleasant to the site and good for food and the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil i want to preach to you for just a few minutes this evening i got a lot of content but i will move quickly through it to get to my point that we will close with this evening on just this simple topic the gardener the gardener look to your neighbor and say the gardener the gardener i want to say real quick before i allow you to be seated i am celebrating 10 years of marriage with the most wonderful beautiful wife that i could ever have been blessed with from god give her a big round of applause for putting up with me for 10 years and you can be seated tonight i want to paint a picture not the one that my boy was trying to paint in the new york times with his roller but i want to paint a picture that's quite an obvious picture in the scripture for you just for a few minutes on perhaps a revelatory view or a type and shadow of scripture that we will kind of walk through and see what it means to us but genesis 2 he continues on in verse number 15. and the lord god took the man and put him in the garden that he planted previously of eden and he tells mankind address it and to keep it and the lord god commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden thou thou mayest freely eat but of the tree of knowledge and of good and evil thou shall not eat of it for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die humanity's assignment from the get-go here is to be a gardener since adam was created in the image of god and god tells us in our opening text that he planted a garden for man to keep and to dress god would be the ultimate gardener i don't know how much experience you have this evening i know that i can't preach or speak or teach from experience that you have in planting or having a garden i may lose an entire generation for a moment here and talking about a garden or growing or planting anything but i've told this story before and i think it fits too well not to tell it but my wife and i when we first got married we moved into a an older neighborhood in downtown maryville where the home was it was an older home it was actually in the historic district and most all of our neighbors we noticed very quickly had a garden of some sort it may not have been very big by the schnitzer it may just been a 10 by 10 plot of land or it may have been of a little greater size but they had it there in their backyard and you would see them go out and i noticed that they were all of of an older age they were probably 50 or 60 years older or older and and i began to wonder why do these people have a garden especially when you can walk i mean we were within walking distance and within a mile or two miles even if you want to get in your car of multiple grocery stores why would you want to go out and till the ground up and plant seeds and watch and take a chance that it don't grow i don't know how many times i've heard people talk well i work in the garden but those cucumbers or those tomatoes are just not really doing what i thought they were going to do you know it's just not really producing what i thought and i i know that one of our greatest issues that we're facing in our current world is that we want to skip the process of growth i would never consider going out and planting a garden sorry maybe the hoa may not even allow me i don't know but i can't i can't i can't i can't even think when i could not even now have to even get out of the house i could just get on my phone and instacart some bananas right hey but we live in a generation we live in a world now where we want to skip the process we want to get right to it and if it's bad or if it's messed up or if it's broken i didn't see the process i didn't see it spring forth or grow so therefore it's much easier for me to get rid of it right i remember growing up my grandparents i would always get in trouble brother jacob because i would my grandparents had one of those fruit basket things that would hang from the ceiling it was like four tiers you know that and they would put the the i guess is more expensive nicer i don't know what it would be nicer stuff at the top so i couldn't get to it but i would get on a chair in the kitchen i would take the bananas and i would take the stuff out that my grandmother had put up there and we would wad up pieces of paper or find a ball and we would play basketball in the kitchen in there and we got in a lot of trouble for it but i remember many times my my granny would come in and say why did you move those well first of all they need to be thrown away they're brown and i remember vividly her saying well they can be used for something because that previous generation understood the process of planting and watering and seeing a process therefore they weren't just going to throw those things out like our generation would that if it goes bad well we'll just have to order some more we'll just have to get on amazon and then amazon prime you can have you another whatever in a day or so we must understand that with god our relationship with him it's all about growth but we must understand that growth is a process you know people who get to see the mountaintop views are people who like to climb people who get to see marvel miracles are people that understand the process people there's some people and it's sad to say and you hate to say it you didn't want to see it but there's some people that aren't here because they couldn't see that the process was part of the promise and you're not going to know how to handle the promise unless you're willing to get in the midst of the process if i just handed a kid something that they didn't have to work for that car is probably going to get dinged up that car is probably going gonna get wrecked it's not gonna be cleaned out very much but if they had to work for that car they're gonna vacuum it out they're gonna keep it washed they're gonna make sure that nobody's opening car they may even park i know some people uh not mention any names but brother cade they'll park all the way out here in the back because they value that right because they had to work for it they but that kid that their mom and dad just tossed them the keys that park right next to a clunker and this don't matter there's a process when you value things you don't give in to this throwaway culture and so the thing that we get into is now we we begin to believe that god looks at us the way that we look at ourselves or the way that we look at things and we begin to look at people the way that we look at things and so then we lose value for people and before we know it we have this we've devalued our own life and we walk into church and even though we're on the pew we really have a problem really fathoming the fact that god loves us and that god cares about us and that god really died for us and that he got out of the grave and we believe that as a historical fact but did he really do it for me because i've done so much wrong and does god really value me because culture says when things are broken and things are messed up and things are not going right that you just disregard of it but the gardener says i've got something for you here's a little sunshine on a cloudy day here's a shower of mercy to a thirsty soul and oh how we will correlate with what pastor had to say tonight in seasons if you will understand that you will reap what you will sow that there's a process in the sowing if you want to reap if you will let me introduce you tonight to god the gardener there's a great growth and a supernatural promise in each and every person's life in this room no matter how young or how old you are but it's a process anyone uh maybe and i know i can i can attest to this in multiple cases in my life has anybody ever attempted to plant something like grass seed and you look at that spot in the yard you know hey what happened to you because you got the same amount of seed and water that they did and they're growing what happened here right huh maybe i've got some farmers maybe why in the world is it that some seasons things just seem to sprout up and you can't control it and the crop is this high or the grass is this plush that first year that you plant it but one summer all of a sudden it looks like you never attempted to even plant your yard huh you know i can't help but think that there's ground that you thought it was going to do what it was assuming it never did what you thought it was going to do the seed didn't sprout it went through a dry season i planted in the wrong season and the gar maybe the ground was hard or it wasn't broken up enough to take the seed well i believe that god the gardener planted a seed much like you and i have experienced that didn't do what he thought he was going to do because he planted adam and it didn't produce the fellowship he thought it was going to but rather man disobeyed and lost his access to its source and brought forth death adam you were supposed to keep it you had one commandment you were supposed to dress it why are you around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil adam failed to keep the garden in genesis 3 and 17 you know it but we'll look at it for the tight sake here genesis 3 17 and adams and unto adam he said because thou has hearkened unto my the voice of thy wife and has eaten of the tree of which i commanded thee saying thou shalt not eat of it cursed is the ground for thy sake because he's a gardener in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou shalt eat of the herb of the field and the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till the till thou return unto the ground for out of it was thou taken for dust thou art and thus shalt thou return i can't help it but i can't i can't in my mind think that god put the seed in the ground brother joel thinking that he was going to have to say not even three chapters into the book that from dust i brought you and to dust you're going to return and expel them from something that he planted just a chapter earlier but it didn't bring forth what it was supposed to from this moment forward mankind seeks to plant things in the garden of his life and nothing seems to spring forth it may have just been for a season but the weeds of the world and sin work to choke out mankind through nearly two-thirds of the first part of the bible as we read about good men and good women and great moments but there seems to be a cycle of disobedience and disaster and a season that slips in and dries them out and all of a sudden you have 300 years in the book of judges where man just does what's right in his own eyes he just plants what he wants to plant waters what he wants to water does what he wants to do and all of a sudden we end up at the end of the old testament and the bible has just been a thing of like your yard that's just like what happened it looked good just a few years ago we were prospering just a few months ago so it seems that god comes to earth in the beginning of the new testament he lives a life that we can learn from but he speaks consistently in terms that we know parables that begin with the sower went out to sow it is a harvest time it is a planting time i am the vine and you are the branches you plant the water and i will give the increase be not deceived for i'm not mocked for whatever a man sows that's what he's going to reap but let's look at it closer how much the more in the evening he met with the disciples in the closing of the gospels in an upper room where they ate the passover supper he said eat this bread for this is my body this day before the grows twice you will deny me thrice so if we look at the layout here the hebrew day begins at midnight and i'll walk you through this and i promise you we're going somewhere don't fall asleep on me i know some of you didn't get your sunday afternoon nap the kids were running because they ate 14 bags of candy and you're back there just nodding off all right stay with me for a moment i said the word hebrew and you're all like the hebrew word no i'm just kidding the hebrew day begins at midnight okay so on the same day before the sabbath he eats with his disciples leaves that upper room goes to the garden of gethsemane his sweat becomes his drops of blood judah betrays him and he is removed from the garden of gethsemane where he spoke with god so you remember what we just read adam the ground will be cursed because of your disobedience the sweat of your brow you will eat bread adam and you will return to dust you will die and you are to be expelled from the garden that i planted all of a sudden we start to see a correlation between this man named jesus that's come so on the sixth day that man was created and not just man was created but man created a problem called sin jesus goes to the garden of gethsemane and deals begins to deal with man's curse john 19 and 30. it says that when jesus therefore had received the vinegar he said it is finished and he bowed his head and he gave up the ghost and the jews therefore because it was the preparation the body should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day for that sabbath day was a high day assault pilot that their legs might be broken and they might be taken down so on the seventh day of creation the great gardener of god says he rested the sev the sabbath day the seventh day they laid god in flesh jesus christ to rest in a garden tomb god said when he was finished on the seventh day for it is good jesus says on the seventh day it is finished it seems he is still showing us once again through the scripture that i am that i am as it seems that all hope is gone and the miracle worker is dead the one who raised the dead is dead the voice is silent there's no footsteps to follow the commotion is over and what exactly do we do now they took him to the garden tomb borrowed of joseph and john 20 we pick up and we will read it says but mary stood without the sepulcher weeping and she wept and she stooped down and looked into the sepulchre and she saw two angels in white sitting the one at the head and the other at the feet where the body of jesus was laying and they said unto her woman why weepest thou the angels ask why are you weeping what are you crying for i don't know if you can see this and maybe my imagination and i hope i don't do any harm to the scripture here but if you can imagine what these angels are doing they're standing there and the angels are literally like playing a charades game with mary okay she comes in and looks in you find these two angels that have sit on the head and the foot of the place where jesus was like when they looked in they literally like painted a picture of the ark like hey here's the mercy seat why are you crying the veil's been torn the tomb's gone he told all y'all destroy this temple and in three days you go why are you crying we don't understand why you're looking for him you knew he was going to get up did you really expect the one who raised lazarus from the dead do you really expect the one who did everything he was going to do there's almost a little bit of humor in the angel hey what are you crying for what are you weeping for the angels say what are you what are you crying we just we just made the mercy seat here for you huh she saith unto them because they've taken away my lord and i know not where they've laid him and when she said this she turned herself back and saw jesus standing but she didn't know it was jesus jesus then speaks to her see this with me and it says unto her woman why weepest thou whom seeketh thou why are you crying mary same question the angels just asked she supposing him to be what has he got a straw hat on and a fork i mean got his he got his rain boots on he's got a little mulch under his fingers why you think he's a gardener huh though this might have been a mistake on mary's part i can't help but think that she didn't just tell us hear o israel the lord our god is one lord just as he planted a garden in the first pages of your bible i thought he was the guard not not because he had a rake in his hand and a straw hat but because he was in the garden and god once again reminds us that yeah i am that i am and mary why are you weeping she says where is jesus he changed my life this is the same mary he says what do you mean why am i weeping he cast seven demons out of me he freed me from torment he gave me a reason to live he gave me a place in the kingdom he gave me purpose he gave me a life that he gave me worth and dignity he gave me purpose what do you mean why am i crying the man brought me out of nothing what am i supposed to do now her changed life is what brought her to a garden tomb that morning but she didn't recognize his voice until he called her name he says mary all of a sudden things change when the gardener says mary god robed in flesh begins to call a name i can't help but think as we correlate and i promise you we're going somewhere but we got to understand this first god robed them flesh could you could you imagine him remembering the last time he called a name in a garden he says adam adam why are you hiding where you at adam who told you you were naked but now he stands in a garden hey why are you weeping huh he all of a sudden he's in a little bit of a different environment this time he's telling mary hey hey what are you weaving for because proverbs says i love them that love me and i love those that seek to find me they hid from me last time in the garden but this time they're seeking me he's speaking now with a solution like never before he's speaking now to mary the first words the first person he interacts with since he's got up out of the grave he begins to speak with salvation in his lungs like never before he's got victory in his voice that he's got a plan that he's overcome death hell and the grave he says mary i know it's a tomb but it's a garden tomb and i'm the gardener it's me jesus i am the resurrection and i am the life i know it's a tomb and the tomb means death but the garden means life come on could you praise him for just a moment i know sin came from a living tree from the garden years ago but god got on a dead tree and brought us life that we could have it more abundantly today come on would you just praise him for a moment come on if you came praise god oh for the death burial and resurrection there's not anything else we could tell you tonight come on young person could you just clap your hands and give a shout unto god with a voice of triumph she supposed him to be the gardener he is he was and he will always be the one true and living god god had planted many things produced many lives but he came and he himself was planted and produced a way out of the weeds of the world he made a way with a crown of thorns to receive a crown of life the gardener mary it's the gardener he's calling your name today and our response must be master let's go now to paul's letter to corinth paul is dealing with somebody much like the guy that we read the article about earlier some greek philosophers who still don't believe the resurrection had happened not had an experience he's also letting us know that the resurrection was a resurrection not a reconstruction god didn't put pieces back together when you go down in the waters of baptism you're you're a new creature old things are passed away paul's dealing with such issues in this passage and he believe he starts it off perfectly in first corinthians 15 36 thou fool now scripture will preach itself i don't have to give any commentary to this all right so listen to me see this with me i know sometimes we put scriptures on the screen and you just kind of thumb through it but listen to what he says here thou full that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die because paul picked up on the fact that the gardener like to speak in gardening terms and that which thou sowest thou sowest not in the body that that shall be but bear grain it may chance of wheat or of some other grain but god given it a body as it had pleased him to every seed his own body all flesh is not the same flesh but there is one kind of flesh of men another flesh of beast another flesh another of fishes another of birds there are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial and but the the glory of the celestial is one and the glory of terrestrials another see this there is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and the glory the stars and for one star different from another star in glory so also is the resurrection of dead it is sown in corruption but it is raised in incorruption it is sown in dishonor but it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness and it is raised in power it is sown in the natural body but it is raised in the spiritual body there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body and so it is written he says all that say that the first adam was made a living soul and the last adam was made a quickening spirit how be it see this with me that was not first which is spiritual but which is natural afterward that which is spiritual he's all he's talking about planting the first man is of the earth earthy the second man is of the lord of heaven as is the earthy such are they also that are earthy and as in the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly and as we have borne the image of the earth thee we are we shall also bear the image of the heavenly now i'm so thankful that we were able to take on the image of the heavenly now this eye say brethren that the flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of god neither does corruption inherit incorruption behold i show you a mystery that's how we lead into this passage that we sing about and we preach about so often behold i show you a mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall be changed in the moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump of the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed for this corruptible must put on in corruption and this mortal must put on immorality immortality so when this corruptable shall put on the incorruption and this mortal shall put on immortality then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written death is swallowed up in victory oh death where is your sting o grave where is your victory the sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is in the law but thanks be to god somebody say that with me thanks be to god which giveth us the victory through our lord jesus christ because of the gardener we can now plant our life the first earthy body let me just let you know tonight it ain't going to make it it's not going to cut it it's not good enough come on nicodemus you must be born again there is not an option you first were born in that which is earthy that is corruptible it's not going to work you've got to be born again of the water and of the spirit if you're going to make it the death the burial and the resurrection of jesus christ is still repentance baptism in jesus name for the remission of sins and the gift of the holy ghost romans 6 and 3 know ye not that so many of us which were baptized into jesus christ were baptized into his death therefore we somebody say we we are buried with him by baptism into death that like as christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the father by the glory of the gardener even so we also should walk in the newness of life come on is that anybody in this house tonight for we have been planted together for we have been planted together by god the gardener who puts you in the grave in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection if you've been planted in the waters of baptism have you repented of your sins there is a unique ability there's a unique uh attribute an ability called capillary action in the characteristics or attributes of h2o and a planted organism that it took them forever and they still study the idea of what will cause water to be able to defy gravity it's not natural really in anywhere else but in gardening it's a fact that all of a sudden when you put that seed down in the ground and you begin to put some water on top of it there's an unnatural thing that takes place that all of a sudden that same water that pours out and begins to cover up that seed there's a there's an action that takes force there's a drawing within the organism and there is a latching within the h2o that pulls that water up into that organism or up into that plant or i hope you can see what i'm talking about tonight up into that life and all of a sudden there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind that filled all the house and it appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire because it came from within i challenge you tonight be planted be watered and watch the gardener work on you if you've not been baptized there's not a better day in your life than today and there's not a better day on the calendar then easter sunday morning than to be buried in the name of jesus he wants something new to spring forth in somebody's life tonight there's a gardener that wants to plant you and watch you grow for you are a new creature in christ there's somebody in this place tonight that needs to hear oh god's got something for you god wants to bring life into your mess you sat dormant for too long he's the gardener that's what he does he wants to watch you grow he wants to watch you change he went away he wants to watch you produce things he wants he wants to see you move forward that's he's he's the gardener however i hope we've established that he is the gardener but then he created us in his image all right we are commanded adam we are commanded church to keep it and to dress it we are his garden and we must keep it god will do his part but we must do ours why does the salvation steps have our part then his part we can plant we can water but there's an unnatural effect that pulls that water that's that's not up to us some of you are are praying for the holy ghost god's going to give it to you you just keep reaching out for him you just keep seeking him mary he's going to call your name we are his garden so salvation paints the whole picture for us we can do what we're going to do and then god will do what he's going to do but god's not going to do for us you're not going to be walking outside and all of a sudden start raining just on you and he wants to baptize you he's not going to do that you're going to have to go up the steps and get in the water that's your part he's not going to dig the hole it's not going to put the seed in but he will have a supernatural tug that pulls that water up inside of you that springs forth so luke 8 jesus begins to speak in these terms and i'll move through this quickly and we'll get to a closing but this is the words of jesus now i'm going to jump around in the gospels because i like how some of them tell it a little better than the other and don't tell them i said that luke 8 and verse number 10 and he said unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of god but to other in parables that seeing they might not see and hearing they might not understand so i'm going to talk to you in terms that i know and you know as a gardener now the parable is this the seed is the word of god that's simple that's all we're doing tonight that's all pastor did this morning you're going to have to water it you're going to have to till up the ground i can throw this seed out tonight but just as he tells us a little bit later sometimes it falls on the stony ground sometimes it falls on the he he just keeps talking in these terms because he realizes that's really who he was from the beginning he said so the seed is the word of god those by the wayside are they that hear then cometh the devil and he takes the word out of their hearts he gets them distracted on social media gets them distracted by their job lest they should believe and be saved the devil distracts them and pulls the word of god out and all of a sudden what used to be planted is now god above the ground and it can't bring forth life they that are on the rock that are which they they hear and they receive the word with joy but they have no roots the wind blows through and all of a sudden they're gone they're here one day they're gone tomorrow they're here for easter they're gone got no roots and some fell among the thorns they heard they go forth but they were choked out by the cares and the riches and the pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to perfection i'll listen to the lord here on that check for just a moment we had a great time at youth retreat this weekend thursday night friday morning and friday night and i'll go ahead and preach to the young folks this morning if you took an extra shift on your job and didn't come to youth retreat he's talking to you right here there's not going to be anything growing over there in the thorns you got to be here for the word of god to be planted in your life you got to be seeking him if you're going to see him in the garden i'll move on but that one good ground are they which is honest and of good heart and having heard the word keep it and bring forth fruit with patience i will call but who will answer i will knock but who will open i will plant but who will plow the ground of your flesh who will get uncomfortable to make sure that the word is what's living and breathing in my life i will plant my word but who will water what kind of ground does the gardener have to work with tonight the seed is the word of god so we keep reading in the same parable but let's jump to a different gospel mark 4 and verse number 30 and he said whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of god or with what comparison shall we compare it is like the grain of a mustard seed which when it is sown in the earth is less than all the seeds that be in the earth and that is the truth it is a small very very very small seed but when it is sown it groweth up and become greater than all the herbs and shooteth out the great branches so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it so jesus likes talking about mustard seeds for some reason as a gardener there was something about him that was not just so proud of it but he liked the concepts the characteristics the attributes of it the mustard seed is this small seemingly uh finite you can't even hardly hold on to a mustard seed it's hard to even keep it in your hand it's it's so little but yet the scripture tells us and we see that it's proven and those that have planted it becomes exceedingly great luke 13 says he says unto what is the kingdom of god like and he says shall it resemble it it is the grain of a mustard seed which man took and cast in the garden and it grew and whacks great in the fowls of the area we see it constantly referred to can i tell you a few attributes that the gardener knows about the mustard seed the mustard seed is unaffected by other plants around it if you plant tomatoes close to jalapenos you're going to get hot tomatoes many other plants and vegetables cannot grow in certain types with other plants and vegetables because they take on the characteristics of what's around them certain plants cannot grow near a black walnut tree or even near its roots because it can take in the toxins of the black walnut tree however a mustard seed can be grown around anything it is not affected by its surrounding you could plant a mustard seed right on top of a jalapeno seed and it's going to grow nothing but a mustard tree completely unaffected by its surrounding makes sense why the gardener liked it he said be not conformed to this world you are in it you're not of it i don't like lukewarm i don't like somebody that's affected by the room and they just chameleon based upon who they're hanging out with no i want you to be who you are no matter who's around a gardener seems to favor this mustard seed you know the mustard seed has an attribute it it it is enduring and grows in unfavorable conditions we found that the mustard seed planted alongside a sandy dirt road while there was very little earth and only received the rain when it came in some rainy seasons yet this large plant had grown up here the mustard seed grows in difficult circumstances even in garbage and contaminated areas it grows where other plants would be choked out eaten by bugs infested by diseases the mustard seed because i'll grow wherever it's not affected by the conditions it's not affected by what the news has got to say it's not affected by the doctor's report it's not affected by the wars or rumors of wars it's not affected by whether everything's going right on the job or it's not going it's it's not effective it's going to continue to grow this the seed seems to make more and more sense why he keeps referring to it it grows large enough to shelter birds it says the mustard plant is is not really a tree but it can grow up to 15 feet tall and be a resting spot for birds a resting spot for really anyone but this is one i love this is the fourth attribute and i won't keep going but it says it cannot be made into a hybrid man has discovered how to make hybrid vegetables the way this works is they change the dna for example they get corn to be perfect corn that bugs won't eat you have to cross corn dna with cucumber dna the only way that you can get corn to accept the cucumber dna is into it's to introduce it through a virus you make the corn sick and then it will accept the dna of the cucumber and end up as a hybrid corn but science has discovered that the mustard seed cannot be turned into a hybrid the mustard seed can never be anything other than it refuses a virus it refuses anything that combats it it's not going to partner up with anything else it don't need anything else it's going to grow wherever it's planted it's not going to be affected by its surrounding and it's going to grow large enough that you could lean on it that you could find shelter in it matthew 17 and 20 it makes sense why jesus said unto them because of your unbelief for verily i say unto you if you had faith not just the grain of any seed if you had faith as of the grain of a tomato seed no cause the tomato will end up tasting like a jalapeno huh but the gardener knows the attributes of that even which he plants and some of you are wondering why you have not been planted because even when it's in a seed form he knows what he's putting in the ground some of us are wondering why we're not springing forth anything there's no fruit from our life there's no things happening in our lives our business won't flourish our things it's because are you trusted enough to be put in the ground in god's garden in a relationship with him is there is there enough there for him to to plant it when our faith increases despite our attempt to to delude it despite the ways the world are coming to try to make a hybrid out of it despite the the many truths that are coming at you in our world today despite unfavorable circumstances it ends up being a shade and a shelter for others to lean on and a strength for itself this only comes if you're going to keep it though dress it this only comes if you're going to water it this only comes he says by prayer and fasting because the garden after all has always been a place of fellowship the process of growth is me and god god me communion i'm gonna talk to you i'm gonna let you plant some words in my life you know pastor mentioned seasons if you'll stay in the garden it's always easy to tell what season you're in it's when you're meandering about doing your own thing you don't realize that the leaves have fell off the trees you don't realize there's things springing forth in the garden because you haven't been there in a while you don't understand why there's favor in somebody else's life you're coming to church and pastor says we're having revival duet i haven't felt nothing in months because you hadn't been in the garden seasons are changing all around you people are flourishing and businesses are blowing up the church is moving forward but you don't understand why things aren't happening for you because there's a garden that has to be kept and only you can keep it you've got to keep it you've got to address it because the gardener's only going to do what the gardener can do in closing the gardener would like to plant life in the midst of your situation tonight whatever is planted in a garden tomb will bear a miracle i believe that that mustard seed faith can begin to move into this place here in a few moments and anything could happen because whatever you plant here you plant in a relationship with god has the ability to do things beyond what we can ask or think or hope for so i want to preach to somebody for just a moment that maybe you're dealing with your past you made some mistakes i challenge you to plant it here tonight and let god begin to work your broken dreams your old life your failures your losses your tears whatever you let go of whatever you messed up with in your treasures your life whatever it is that you plant in the garden of god will come alive again and blossom bring forth life because the tomb that we celebrate was not just a garden tomb but it was the gardener's tomb who tilled the ground for miracles i want you to stand to your feet tonight this will be a little bit of a different altar call but i felt in prayer this evening around this altar and pre-service prayer to make a very specific altar call before we call for the entire church and i'd ask you to bow your heads in this place tonight and begin to pray because god wants to till up some ground tonight god wants to till up some ground tonight come on i'm asking every single person before we make this call would you close your eyes and would you just pray a prayer for a moment god as pastor preached this morning there's going to be a harvest there's going to be a separation where the gardener does what the gardener does and that is he begins to separate wheats from the tears i want to make a call for somebody in this room tonight on an easter sunday there's an altar of repentance there's water for somebody to be baptized has never been baptized and you can receive the gift of the holy ghost tonight if you've never received it and there's going to be a moment for you to come here in just a second because you're the most important person in this room but i want to give opportunity to somebody that the lord spoke to me about in prayer just a few minutes before service began tonight that says god wants to tell you tonight that i planted something in you some years back and there's a calling on your life that's been laying dormant that you have not watered and you have not kept that as just as much god wants to resurrect the sinner tonight god wants to bring forth something from that seed that he planted inside of you at a youth camp that he planted inside of you in a time of prayer many years ago and if you if you feel the holy ghost tugging on you right now and that's you i wish you'd step out of your seat and come around this altar say god i gotta get back about your business i gotta get back in the garden and i've gotta keep it and i've gotta address it come on god planted something in you years ago god planted something in you and you just not you've lost sight of it you got distracted you fell to the to the wayside you fell to the thorny so but all of a sudden right now you feel god tugging on you god wants to pour water out upon you tonight god wants to let you know hey i haven't forgot about you i planted that seed and i still have promises and i want to begin the process again tonight i want to begin the process again tonight come on church family would you help me get around come on there's some things going to spring forth from this place there's some stuff that's going to spring forth from this altar tonight come on the gardeners here right now come on pour it out he's going to pour it out on you open up your heart right now come on open up your heart make sure it's good ground god forgive me god created me a clean heart god give me pure hands god wash me okay come on that's it find somebody to pray with i'm asking every single person in the room tonight if you'd find maybe you've got it all together and your life is producing things but you find somebody reach over that their life's become kind of dull and the world's weeds are choking the life out of them but they need something right now come on young person come on young person let god water that calling tonight come on young man let god water that calling tonight come on young couple oh god oh oh church would you help me for a few more moments hi if there wouldn't be anybody looking around there's people praying all across the altar and saying they're desperate for something for god they're looking for god oh and he's wanting to speak life into their situation right now oh find somebody once you reach across find somebody that's praying oh this is what church is all about come on we need everybody in this place to be produced in the fruit of the spirit we need everybody in this place to be sharing hope and joy and peace and love god i praise you today oh god spring forth oh god spring forth o god spring forth oh god so so this is this is holy ghost come fill me up holy holy ghost burn right until the whole world this is your love come fill me up holy ghost this is is completely right know come fill me up holy ghost oh your love as those continue to pray if there's anybody here tonight that wants to be baptized in jesus name we have water and a change of clothes we have everything that you need tonight to do that i want to make one last prayer and push i know there's people still praying but i want us to bind together tonight as what we started tonight i'm believing that following this week and next sunday with brother morgan i believe and we're going to see miracles signs and wonders and there's going to be people that come up to you this week that you need to invite to that and i want us right now to begin to pray with expectation of what god is gonna do not only what he's done today what seeds he's planted in somebody's life today but what he's gonna do next week would you lift your hands in this place god we thank you for every seed that was planted in our heart this this morning god this afternoon at sevierville and tonight god we ask that you go god we ask that you god send us forth god to send the harvest god i asked god that you would move and go with every family god every business owner come on church can we pray right now god lay some soul upon my heart god let somebody come up to me this week god open up doors oh god lord i'm believing with great expectation god that you're gonna do great and mighty things in this revival god we praise you for it in advance in jesus name we pray those that are praying can keep praying there'll be no formal dismissal tonight god bless you