100 Fold

Well, hello and welcome to Kingdom Offerings. This is the podcast environment of 100 Fold Ministries. Here we like to unpack the offerings of Scripture, the Kingdom Offerings, with our special emphasis on the Gospel of the Kingdom, as Jesus put it. And we are really excited. This is our first contribution to this world of podcasts. Podcast number one. I thought it would be really good for us to use this moment to introduce our listeners to the ministry of 100 Fold and to our grand hopes in Christ for this ministry. 100 Fold Ministries was born with really a singular hope. That is, proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. That's actually from a Bible verse. It's from Acts 28 31. It comes from the very end of the book of Acts and it has become our mission statement to boldly proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God really was the central theme of Jesus' ministry while on earth. This Gospel of the Kingdom was the compelling motivation of the disciples. It was a hope they were willing to die for. It was the hallmark message of the Apostle Paul. And I think both the Old and New Testament just simply ooze with this good news that points to the Kingdom of God that was initiated by the coming of the King himself, Jesus the Christ. 100 Fold Ministries has as its chief aim to bring this wonderful good news and the promise of its 100 Fold blessing to the world. So you might say then, Dave, what's up with this name 100 Fold? If it's all about the Gospel of the Kingdom, why don't you have the word Kingdom or at least the word God in the name of your ministry? So let's talk about that for a minute. We remember that when Jesus broke through from heaven and began his public ministry, he spent his days teaching and living into the Kingdom of God. But knowing that this was really deep water for mere humans, the Kingdom of God, he largely taught in story form, word pictures, parables. It was his practice to use these stories to stimulate our imaginations and to fill us with wonder. To use stories to both, I don't know, confuse us and inspire us, it's pretty brilliant. There are a dozen or more Kingdom parables, depending on who's counting, and if you connect with our website, you can start getting acquainted with the Gospel of the Kingdom there. But one of the least famous, I think, Kingdom parables is sometimes called the Parable of the Sower or the Parable of the Seeds. You can find it in Mark chapter 4 and also in Matthew 13. That's got a number of Kingdom parables in it, Matthew 13. And then again in Luke 8. It's from this parable, the Parable of the Sower, that we pull our name a hundredfold. The general idea in the story that Jesus tells is that of a farmer who randomly sows seeds. Some seeds fall on a hard path and these seeds don't take root. Some fall on rocky soil with only a little bit of soil and that soil contains thorns and they get taken away by the thorns. And then there are the birds that come and take away some of the seeds, the scorching sun. There's lots of ways that the seeds don't grow. But Jesus tells us some good news in this. He says there's also some seeds that fall on good soil. So in the first case, on these various bad soils, the seed is taken away. But in the second case, it falls on good soil and it grows and yields a crop, 30, 60, even a miraculous hundredfold crop. It seems that the evidence of good soil is the presence of good fruit. Jesus later explains to his disciples that the seed represents the gospel, the good news of God's plan of salvation and his plans to establish his eternal kingdom. He says it's the truth, the truth about me. He also says that the sower represents anyone who will proclaim that truth. And then the various soils represent people's response to that truth, the condition of their heart. There are so many applications from this rich story, but at the heart of it, Jesus is trying to reveal the good news concerning the coming of the kingdom and his rule and reign. What we're learning is that for the heart centered on the kingdom of God, there is a miraculous eternal bounty laid aside, a bountiful harvest for the king. And I think the math is interesting in this story. A 30-fold return, well, that would have been an amazing profit in the first century. 60-fold, well, that would have been unheard of, but a 100-fold profit, that would have to be a miracle. The point that Jesus is making in this story, this amazing story, is that the life lived according to the values and the purposes of the kingdom, as a kingdom citizen serving Jesus the Christ. That life is unlimited in potential. I think if you follow the curve, the next numbers on the equation serve as exponentially multiplied. 100-fold really is just the start. Jesus said as much. He said, very truly, I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I'm going to the Father. You see, that passage in John chapter 14 is really a kingdom promise to us today. So at 100-Fold Ministries, we believe that the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the rule and reign of Christ, is for us right now in our lives. It is extending a weight of glory that few of us are aware of, and much less enjoy the manifold blessing that is found there. So we call ourselves 100-Fold because we refuse to settle for second best. We refuse to listen to the lies of this world, and instead we live to bring King Jesus his fullest glory, 100-Fold glory and beyond. So I don't know how you came by this podcast today, but you can always connect with us at 100-Fold Ministries, that's 1-0-0-F-O-L-D-FOLD, 100-Fold-Ministries.org. We'd love to have you come and visit. We'd love to have you come and participate. So again, if you're a dreamer of great good deeds of divine proportion that none can confuse for anything but the handiwork of God, then you have found the right place, the right place to grow and to serve. So let's seek the 100-Fold blessing of the gospel of the kingdom together. This is Dave Scherrer, and this is 100-Fold Ministries. Take care. © The Bulletproof Executive 2013 All Rights Reserved.