P a g e | 1 Break up the fallow ground
So Summer draws to a close. Autumn is in the air. Colours change,
temperatures fall, darkness draws in earlier.
Seasons are always changing, it’s what seasons do, with perennial
predictability and inescapable inevitability.
You may or may not have your favourite season, depending on
your temperament and type.
We returned last week from our holiday in Italy, where it was hot
and sunny. When we landed at Heathrow, it was grey and cold
and raining. Isaac stepped on to the tarmac, raised his hands to
the air and sighed with contentment: “Rain” he said, “glorious
rain.”
Jenny and I did not share in his moment of contentment.
Yet, in the changing seasons, God, in his goodness, satisfies our
twin desires for change and for permanence.
This is expressed by C.S.Lewis in the Screwtape Letters, as a senior
devil called Screwtape instructs a junior:
“[GOD] has balanced the love of change in them by a love of
permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together in
the very world He has made, by that union of change and
permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives them the seasons,
each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is
always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an
immemorial theme. He gives them in His Church a spiritual year;
they change from a fast to a feast, but it is the same feast as
before.”
Screwtape, in The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
P a g e | 2 The beginning of September is a natural point of change and
transition, the start of a new season. It is part of God’s rhythm of
change and permanence, feast and famine.
I walked past a field this last week that lay empty following a
summer harvest. Ploughed over and ready for the next season.
Ready for new seed, for renewed growth.
Its stark emptiness spoke to me. Just a short while ago it had been
full of crops, waving in the breeze, now it was just soil and stubble.
Sounds like Cockney rhyming slanging for toil and trouble.
Famine rather than feast. Emptiness rather than fullness.
On my walk, I also passed fields that had been left empty for a
little while. Fallow ground. Ground and soil left alone without seed
and crop to restore nutrients and life to the soil. The farmer knows,
in his wisdom, that such land will produce greater harvests in the
future, following a period of barrenness and emptiness. Such
ground is ripe for harvest.
But at the moment, it is fallow and full of weeds.
Two of the Old Testament prophets, Jeremiah and Hosea, use a
picture of a fallow, hardened, weed-filled field, to speak to God’s
people about the condition of their hearts and God’s desire to
make them fruitful – to bring them to harvest time, to restore their
relationship with God.
We will consider Hosea today:
“Sow for yourself righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and
break up your unploughed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord,
until he comes and showers righteousness on you.” (Hosea 10:12)
P a g e | 3 Context:
Hosea’s primary audience is the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which
he refers to as Ephraim. The time is about the 8th Century BC and
Assyria, which spans parts of modern-day Syria, Turkey, Iraq and
Iran, is the dominant force in the region. Israel is under the
constant threat of invasion and exile. It is also a time of great
political upheaval and instability in Israel. The nation has 6 kings in
a period of 30 years, many of whom are assassinated or murdered
in plots and intrigues.
Israel has turned her back on God and is worshiping at the Baal
sex altars, sleeping with the shrine prostitutes and asking Ball to
respond in kind with seed and fertility. Baal is believed to be the
weather god in charge of agriculture, fertility, rainfall and
productivity. The people of Israel, the bride of the LORD, have
prostituted themselves to Baal.
The controlling metaphor in Hosea is that of an unfaithful wife –
something that Hosea personally acts out and experiences with his
own wife. This, says God, is what my people have done.
While the prophets speak of divine punishment and justice, the
great desire of God is for his people to return…
This is the context of these words in Hosea:
“Sow for yourself righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and
break up your unploughed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord,
until he comes and showers righteousness on you.” (Hosea 10:12)
The ground of their hearts has become hard, like a field lying
fallow, full of weeds. There is great potential for harvest, for
fruitfulness. There are memories of fruitful times in the past – but
now, God wants them to break up the hard ground, remove and
clear away the weeds, to water the seed, to produce and
experience a harvest of righteousness.
P a g e | 4 With our change of seasons, naturally and spiritually, with our
fallow fields lying empty with the promise of future harvest, in the
natural rhythms of our life, I want us to consider three questions this
morning:
1) Where do you need to weed?
2) Where do you need to water?
3) Where do you need to wait?
1)
Where do you need to weed?
Land is allowed to lie fallow so it can become more fruitful, but in
this condition, it becomes full of weeds.
When Jesus told the story, or the parable, of the sower (Matthew
13), he spoke of a farmer going out to sow his seed, which stands
for the word of God, and how that seed was affected greatly by
the condition of the ground on which it fell. One of the states that
Jesus described was ground with weeds, with thorns, which grew
up and choked the life out of the growing seed.
Jesus refers to these thorns specifically as being the worries of this
life or cares of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth.
You don’t need to plant weeds. You don’t need to landscape
them. They appear by themselves. And what I found as a child,
when I weeded our garden, was that the jet black soil, absent of
weeds after my tenacious efforts to dig them up, did not remain in
that condition. Weeding is not a one-off event, unless you opt for
concrete.
But you can’t grow anything in concrete.
Breaking up the fallow ground of your heart, of the soil of your soil,
means removing the weeds, to give the seed plenty of space and
opportunity to grow.
P a g e | 5 What are the weeds, the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of
wealth, that need your attention?
What is stunting your spiritual growth, stopping and choking the life
of the seed – the word of God to you?
What bad habits?
What bitterness or unforgiveness?
What areas of cynicism or laziness?
What coldness or hardness of heart?
What is stopping you being soft and responsive to the word of
God?
Weeding is about removing obstacles, hindrances, things that
prevent spiritual growth… Things that compete for space in your
heart…. That leave little room for the word of God to take root
and grow…
“let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily
entangles…” (Hebrews 12:1)
As summer turns to autumn, where do you need to weed so that
this coming season of life and ministry can produce a harvest in
your life? So that emptiness and fallowness is not a permanent
state, but part of the natural rhythm of life.
2)
Where do you need to water?
“I will arise, I will move on, I will break the fallow ground and water
the seed. I will arise, I will move on in the freshness of a new
anointing now.”
God wants to give some of you a new and fresh anointing. He
wants to release a new fire in your belly, a new and fresh hope, a
reinvigoration, a renewal of youth. Why not? Maybe you have
P a g e | 6 had a period of quiet, rest, inactivity – your spiritual life has been
like a fallow field, either by choice or as a result of life and
circumstances.
But now, the ground is renourished, the nutrients required for life
and growth are present – it is time for fresh growth, new life –
spiritual activity
The seed is in the ground! Even if you can’t see it
Hosea warns Israel, calls on them to turn around, to break up their
fallow ground…. And the final chapter of the book contains
promises of blessings from God in response:
“I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily. Like a
cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots; 6 his young shoots
will grow.” (Hosea 14:5-6)
Job, considering life and death, speaks of a tree
“Though its roots have grown old in the earth and its stump
decays, at the scent of water it will bud and sprout again like a
new seedling.” (Job 14:8-9)
At the scent of water…it will bud and sprout again.
I have heard a saying used recently by a couple of people:
“The grass is not greener on the other side, the grass is greener
where you water it.”
Where do you need to water?
I will break the fallow ground and water the seed…
There is a fresh anointing coming.
I need to water the seed of growth and righteousness in my life…
John Ortberg – Soul Keeping. The soul is the stream and you are its
keeper….
P a g e | 7 Weeding is about removing obstacles, hindrances, dealing with sin
and poor habits, time-wasters and stealers…. It is about starving
your flesh…
Watering is about nourishing growth, developing health, feeding
your spirit.
We need water to grow.
“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you,
O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 42)
Think about these top 5 catalysts for spiritual growth, as identified
by the Reveal research of Willow Creek church. The top 5 things
that will help you grow spiritually.
Which of these do you need to water?
1)
2)
3)
4)
Reflecting on and reading the bible.
Developing core Christian beliefs.
Undertaking regular spiritual practices.
Actively serving others. (Albert Schweitzer: “The only really
happy people are those who have learned how to serve.”)
5) Participating in spiritual community.
For some of us, breaking up the fallow (hard) ground and
watering the seed, will mean paying attention to some of these
areas, being obedient to God and his word, being faithful in our
response to his challenges.
It will mean us actively pursuing spiritual community and serving
opportunities. It will mean us renewing spiritual practices, finding
new ways and old ways to engage with scripture, strengthening
and informing our core beliefs.
You will have to move from metaphor to method and means.
From pictures to practicalities. From soaring similes to small steps.
Where do you need to weed?
P a g e | 8 Where do you need to water?
3)
Where do you need to wait?
Recognizing time and seasons and limitations…
“See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop,
patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be
patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.”
(James 5:7-8)
In an age of the instant, there are many things that you cannot
hurry. You can’t hurry love, you’ll just have to wait… You can’t
hurry the transition from caterpillar to butterfly.
You can’t hurry a boiling kettle or a baking cake…
You can’t hurry a seed growing in the ground.
The farmer has to wait for the crop…. For the seed to grow…
We need to recognise the constraints of time and the limits of our
capabilities as human beings…
Paul writes:
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So
neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God
who gives the growth.” (1 Corinthians 3:6-7)
Saul did not want to wait for Samuel to make a sacrifice, choosing
to do it himself instead, and it cost him his kingship.
Abraham did not want to wait for Sarah to conceive and chose to
help God along with the assistance of Hagar, and that did not
end well.
Moses did not want to wait for the water to come out the rock by
God’s hand alone, so he gave it a whack with his stick – and that
meant that he did not enter the promised land…
P a g e | 9 When you try to rush God, it does not work. The Bible talks about
keeping in step with the Spirit. Not getting ahead of God’s plans,
not lagging behind.
Whenever we walk as a family, Jenny inevitably drops several
paces behind me. Maybe I walk too fast, maybe she walks too
slow. We are not good at keeping in step sometimes.
Often I am in too much of a hurry.
It’s the same with us and God. We have this sneaky feeling that
God needs to hurry up.
See how the farmer waits….Be patient. Don’t get ahead of God.
Trust in his timing and his provision. Recognise your limits.
Where do you need to wait? Where do you need to let the seed
grow?
Don’t just do something – stand there.
The season is changing.
Break up your fallow ground, water the seed, rise up in a fresh and
new anointing.
Where do you need to weed?
Where do you need to water?
Where do you need to wait?
P a g e | 10 Community group questions and discussion points:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
Consider the context of this passage. Why is Hosea speaking
to Israel in this manner? What state are they in?
What picture does Hosea use to describe the state of their
hearts and their relationship with God?
Read together the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13). What
are the different types of soil and what do these represent?
What do the thorns and the weeds represent?
Fallow ground becomes full of weeds. What might these
weeds be in our relationship with God and how can we
begin to remove them?
What does it mean practically “to throw off everything that
hinders and the sin that so easily entangles”?
As well as weeding fallow ground, we need to water the
seed of what God is doing in our lives and the things that
bring growth. What are some catalysts of spiritual growth and
how can we give attention to these areas?
Part of sowing and reaping is the process of waiting (see
James 5:7-8). What does that entail in our Christian lives?
Where are we tempted to be impatient or to hurry God?
How can we “keep in step with the Spirit”?
Seasons come and go – it is good to recognise the season
we are in and live with God through that season. Perhaps as
you pray together you can pray for this season of your life
and for fruitfulness and soft and receptive ground for what
God wants to do.