Focus On Farming Series

Please find below, Lesson 1 of 5 from the Focus On Farming Series available on PreachIt.org. The Focus On Farming Series authored by Pastor T.R. Kelley is a series of 5 lessons complete with teaching notes, handouts and a beautiful Power Point image pack. These lessons deal with 5 principles necessary for any church to maintain and grow exponentially.
1. Breaking Up Your Fallow Ground
2. A Sower Went Forth To Sow
3. A Heart For The Harvest
4. Unreaped Fields
5. Patience In The Harvest

SERIES: Focus On FarmingLESSON 01 - BREAKING UP YOUR FALLOW GROUND
BIBLE READING: JEREMIAH 4:3
Any good farmer will tell you that before one can grow any kind of a garden, one must first plow up the ground where the garden will be.- It is only after the plowing that one can begin the process of sowing and reaping.* So, with that in mind, we will begin our Focus on Farming series.
Jeremiah 4:3 - For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.
I. INTRODUCTION
A. BREAK UP YOUR FALLOW GROUND
One very important lesson we must learn from these passages focuses on the phrase, "break up your fallow ground," is that fallow ground is either that which, having once been tilled, has long lay uncultivated; or, it is ground that is slightly plowed, in order to be plowed again before it is planted (or sown).
The Church breaks up her own fallow ground, when she stirs up anew the decaying righteousness of her own members...

PASTORAL NOTE: One should not be satisfied with a slight furrowing of the heart; rather, let the land that was fallowed (slightly plowed) be broken up again with a deep furrow of true repentance. In other words, one must not be satisfied with a mere stirring of the heart - there must be a true change of thought and life.
Fact is, too many of us have been long uncultivated in righteousness...
It is time to let true repentance break up our fruitless and hardened hearts; and...
When this is done - and when the seed of the Word of Life is sown in them - worldly cares and concerns will not arise and choke out the good seed like thorns.IMPORTANT: Jeremiah warns that one should not sow the seeds of repentance in unfit soil, but just as the farmer prepares the ground, by clearing it of weeds, and exposing it to the sun and air, before planting the seed, so must you regard repentance as a serious matter, requiring forethought, and anxious labor. To sow in ground that has not been properly plowed one might as well sow on land that is full of thorns - it is time and effort wasted.