[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's Word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to Him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 8:30 or 10:30am if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find
[email protected] Be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: I used to think that having a green thumb was just something that you inherited. And when I say a green thumb, what I'm talking about is some people, I used to think, just had it in them to be able to grow plants, to make a farm, and to see things grow from ground zero. But I think I'm living proof that that's not the case, that it's not just something you inherit, because there's really good information out there that can help you to know how plants can grow.
And so I'll give you an example why I believe this is the case. So when my dad was growing up, he grew up on a farm. So my granddad was a farmer. My dad grew up on a farm. And even as a kid, I remember him being very interested in plants and planting things and having gardens and things like that in the backyard.
And I have successfully killed a lot of plants. And I'll tell you, it's not because of what was maybe inherited or not. To me, what it really was is I had all the information I needed.
I just chose to do nothing with it. So when we first moved here, the house that we had in our backyard had a U shaped raised bed garden. And the people that had it there, they did it the right way. It was up off the ground, it had stones around it, and it was pretty big. And it already had really good soil in there. You can even tell just by putting your hands in it was very, very rich soil, which is great. And one of the things, of course, that you need, and so what I did is I started to look up things that you needed to successfully have a good raised bed garden.
And I took some of the advice, and some of the advice that I took was that you need to do like, where you get like eggshells and the skin of vegetables and fruits to make a compost pile. And so it was nasty. Like we collected in this garbage container outside all the leftover food and vegetables and things like that. And we were gonna mix that into the soil. I also bought some manure. Cause I knew you needed that to fertilize it. But I got a piece of advice from somebody here at Madison that was really, really good advice. And it was this.
They said really in order for plants to grow, especially here in North Alabama, with how tricky the soil is, you can actually get a sample of your soil and send it to Auburn for just a few bucks, and they will tell you the levels of your soil and let you know what you need less or more of.
And I was like, that sounds great. I'm not doing that. But that sounds really, really good. Like I wasn't going to go to that extra length. And so I bought like 2 or $300 worth of plants, not including the other things that I bought to go with it.
And all I had to show from that garden, because I did not take up all the advice, was some squash that oddly tasted like jalapenos because I didn't know if you put them close together, they could cross pollinate. So anyway, that's all we got from that thing. And so the reason why I say all of that, when it comes to gardening, right, we are not short of information.
The information is out there. But the question is, what in the world are we going to do with that information?
And the reason why I say that is as we get into our text today, you've probably noticed a pattern, especially over the past few weeks.
Jesus.
King Jesus has given us a lot of information.
He shared with us things in the Sermon on the Mount that are very cultural. It's information that people were not used to hearing. And like, the way up is down. The greatest among you is going to be the one that's going to serve. It's this upside down kingdom. He's saying, blessed are you when you mourn. And blessed are those who walk into a situation that's chaotic and you're peaceful. Like, he's teaching all these things that you're like, wait, what?
And what's interesting about it is all of these things are good. All of these things are great. The information is out there. But the question is, as he's getting at now, what are you gonna do with it?
And it kind of makes me think about, with the gardening stuff, you know, for me, I knew all the different methods that were available.
And a lot of times when we are wanting to bring about change in our life, you know, what we oftentimes do throw a method at it. Now, I'm not saying that that's necessarily wrong. A lot of times the method can lead to something good, but the method alone is not gonna change us.
I'll give you an example. The new year, when the new year rolls around, and like a lot of us do, we have spiritual goals for ourselves, things that we want in our life to change, what do we tend to do?
Well, I know like I did last year, I was like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna buy a journaling Bible, and that'll fix it. And by the way, love a journaling Bible.
Or what you can do is there's actually a way you can subscribe to something on your phone through the Bible app, and you just pay a few bucks a month, and it lets, you know, alerts you very loudly. Read your Bible, man. Like, you know, you got all these kinds of things like that. So there's so many methods. The methods are great. But what Jesus is gonna deal with in this text is that while the methods might be good, if the heart is not where it needs to be, those methods and unfortunately, sometimes even the message itself will not land where it needs to.
So today, as we get into Matthew 13, I want to make this very clear, because I think if we don't get this part, what's next won't really take root. Matthew 13, according to many scholars, is the centerpiece of the Gospel of Matthew.
It's the dead center.
And the reason why they say it's that way is that Matthew uses a lot of what are called chiastic structures.
Now, if you are into writing or maybe you are an English teacher, you'll find this interesting. But you know how you write, right? You kind of introduce it, talk about it, illustrate it, and come back to what you were originally talking about.
When you hear a chiastic structure, Chi was the Greek letter for x.
And that's what this is. This is the dead center, according to scholars of Matthew.
And would you know it? Of all the things Matthew could pick to focus on as the dead center of his message, the one thing he wanted to talk about was the heart.
And doesn't it make sense that Matthew would lean so heavily into the heart? Because think about what Jesus just talked about that you're not. And I'm not going to be able to live out the Sermon on the Mount if my heart's not in the right place.
And I'm not gonna truly walk into the true cost of discipleship. Like Brandon talked about, if my heart's not in the right place.
And I'm not gonna be able to really believe that the last can be first and the first are gonna be last if my heart's not in the right place. And I'm not gonna really believe the idea that the greatest among us is gonna be the one that walks into a room and is a servant if my heart's not in the right place place.
The reason why this is the dead center of this text is because Matthew's trying to make sure we get it. In fact, you'll notice, by the way, while we're only covering one, there are seven parables, which is also the number of completion at the dead center of this book. He's like, listen, if you can get your heart right, everything else will be complete.
And so it's with that in mind, we're getting to this text, and I want to go ahead and pose a question to all of us this morning.
What type of soil or heart is the message of the kingdom landing on?
And if you're new with us this morning, we're starting a new series called Kingdom Minded and Man. To me, this chapter encapsulates that idea probably deeper than anything else, because it really does have to do with what's on the inside.
Do I have a kingdom heart? Do I have a kingdom mind? If you're a guest, you're like, well, what does that mean?
Well, if you remember, in week one, we talked about that, the idea of the kingdom and the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is not something just one day. It's happening right now.
King Jesus is reigning and ruling right now.
And so because of that, what that means is King Jesus wants to be king of my heart.
And that the things on the outside that I want to change in my life are not gonna be changed unless I let him have rule and. And reign over me on the inside. And the change then will happen on the outside. So as we go through this, like Brandon mentioned this morning, what type of soil, what type of heart would you say you are? So here's what Jesus did to bring to his audience and to bring to us the central message.
It's interesting he decided to tell them a story.
Now, I love this for several reasons. I love stories.
But what's also interesting about this is that Jesus knew the way that people retain information.
In fact, one of the things that I share with the early crowd, there was a study that was done in 2017, and what they did, they didn't poll the preacher. They polled the audience of evangelical churches and they said, hey, what are the ways that you like to learn the most?
You know, what was the number one style of learning? It's called narrative style preaching, which is working through the text, getting that main message from the text. Well, that's exactly what Jesus is doing here. But Jesus is not doing anything new. Do y' all remember back when David had committed adultery with Bathsheba?
He put Uriah on the front lines, had him killed.
He was not where he needed to be. And in order to open up his heart, what happened?
The prophet Nathan came to him and he said, hey, David, I gotta tell you about what happened. He was like, yeah, tell me what happened, man. This crazy story about what happened here. He said, there's this man that had this lamb that he cared for so much. It was the only lamb that he had. But then this guy that was so wealthy, had all these other sheep. He took that one guy's little lamb and kept it for himself when he had all these other lambs to enjoy. And Dave was like, where is that guy? Like, let me add him. And he turns the page on. Hey, you are that guy.
It was through that story that I think helped him receive the truth. That's what Jesus is doing for us right here.
He's not telling us a story. So we'll walk away thinking, man, that's cute. He's walking, giving us a story to help us to do some navigation in our heart to see if God has all the corners that we're really willing to let him be king of it. So he's going to give us a parable.
And here's what's neat, is this the very first parable that he tells, and he wants it to be about the hard. And so the way I heard him growing up is that parables were defined as earthly stories with heavenly meanings. And I like that because it's, for me, easy to remember. And maybe you remember those examples, too, but I also love this one. The parables could also be defined as ways of expressing spiritual truths by laying them alongside something more easily understood. Do you remember maybe when your granddad maybe would tell you a story and the story itself was maybe not what happened, like, really happened, but it told a deeper meaning. And you got to know his heart, but you also got to learn about what is really important, that that's what Jesus is doing here. He's laying aside a very deep truth that if we get the rest of Matthew and the rest of the message is gonna be able to be retained.
And so as we go through this, it's important to understand these two things. Number one, the seed is the word of God, the message of the kingdom.
And the word, the message does not change. But you know what does change?
The one that receives it.
And so that's a warning from the very beginning. While the word does not change the one that receives the message, who is the soil is. What can change?
That can be good, but that can also be bad.
And so I want us again to come back to this question. Would you classify yourself right now as what we'll call fertile soil?
Not to just understand the message of the kingdom, but incorporate it. Now, before we answer that, I want us to think about what the message of the kingdom was again. Again, it's saying, God, you're going to reign and you are going to rule in my life.
And anything that happens to come with that, come what may, are our hearts ready to receive that and incorporate it. So here's where it starts. It starts in verse one, when Jesus, when it says this, that that same day he went out of the house and he sat by the lake.
There was this great crowd that gathered around him. And so Jesus got into a boat, he sat in it, and all these people stood on the shore.
So I want you to try to put yourself in the shoes of Jesus, but also the people that are in this crowd.
And so if you're kind of in that crowd, you'll notice, man, you know Jesus because he's God. You know, he knows everything. He's like, hey, the way sound travels the best is through the. Not ground, but off water, right? You can hear someone's voice off a canoe far, you know, greater than you could if you heard him on land at the same distance water travel. Sound travels better on water. So we know something about acoustics. So he gets in a boat, there's a big crowd. I told the early crowd, by the way, if you know men, if you're trying to figure out around Christmas time a reason why your wife should let you get a boat, you'd be like, jesus used it for ministry. So that's what I'm going to use it for.
But here's what I want us to really notice here. As he gets into this boat, this is what it would have looked like, because this is the exact location where Jesus was, where he would have gotten into that boat and he was about to share what he's about to share.
And when he would have gotten that boat, one of the things that he would have seen to this side would have been row after row of Crops.
Now, we don't know for certain if this was really the case, but you have to imagine that there's probably a man with, like, a little satchel or a bag that he was walking by while Jesus was in that boat. And he's walking down each row and he's throwing out some seeds.
Part of the reason why, I think he saw that is. And did maybe see something like that is have you noticed how, like, Jesus makes a message out of what he sees right in front of him? And so maybe he sees a guy that's throwing out some seed. We don't know.
But he sees that they see this. And again, he's about to share with them more things that they understand. It's going to be parables about sheep and wolves and vines and branches and now a sower, something that they would have been very familiar with.
And so he told them many things in parables. And so he tells them about a farmer. This farmer was out sowing seed.
And so some of the seed fell along the path, and the birds, they came up and ate it. And then there was birds.
There's some seed, excuse me, that fell along the path, and the birds came and got that. And there was some that fell in the rocky places.
But the problem there, it didn't have much soil, so it sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and they were withered because they had not taken root. There's this other seed, and it fell among thorns and it grew up, but it choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil where it produced a crop, not any crop, a crop that produced 160 or 30 times what was sown. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear. You're going to notice that there's four soils mentioned. And each one of these soils represents the heart. And again, I want to ask you, which one of these would you say you are? And then I want to go ahead and tell you we're going to come back to the explanation at the end. And there's a reason, because Jesus does.
Jesus doesn't give us the explanation from the very beginning. And there's a reason why.
But for our own learning purposes, so we can track with what he's saying.
The first soil is the hard soil.
It's taken away by the devil before it can be having actually taken root. There's the second one, the stony one. The word is received with that initial excitement, enthusiasm, but lacks deep roots. And when pressure comes, it withers away. There's the thorny soil. This is where the worries and the desires of the world choke it out and it prevents it from actually maturing and growing like it should. And there's the good soil. This is the one that is received and nurtured by and produces a bountiful harvest.
So when Jesus teaches like this, the disciples are like, why are you talking to us like this? Why are you speaking in parables? Can't you just tell us, like, what you mean?
This was so different from them to learn like this. In fact, keep in mind that a lot of them, they would have. The messages that were being shared were like, so over their head to where they wouldn't get it.
And so Jesus is almost being so plain and true and real that it's hard for them to receive it. And so he replied. He says, well, the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you. To who? This is the disciples, he says, but not to them.
Whoever has will be given more and they will have abundance. Who does not have even what they have will be taken away from them.
I'll tell you, I used to kind of struggle with this.
And I don't know if any of you do as you're reading it this morning and think, wait, wouldn't God want everybody?
Like, wouldn't God want everybody to hear the message of the kingdom and get it?
Yes.
But what he's also saying is if your heart is not primed and ready to receive it, it's not going to take.
And y' all know too, you could hear the greatest sermon ever preached and walk away completely unmoved, Right? Because it's not about the message necessarily itself. Even though it can have power like the word does, it also has to have a heart that is fertile soil in order to operate.
So why do some people receive the message of the kingdom and some don't?
Well, I know this might be a weird way to explain it, but I saw an article on social media the other day that somebody shared, or it was maybe because of my algorithm, if that's the case, about that shows you about my algorithm.
But it had the article title, something like this. Why are so many adults crying at Bluey?
And I was like, yeah, why are so many adults crying at Bluey? And so I gotta be frank about this. I had, up until this point, never watched a scene or anything from Bluey. Okay. At all. Never watched any of it. So I didn't know.
And I kind of thought, like, my kids are probably too old for that. I thought I was like, baby, I didn't. Again, had no clue. No clue.
And so I decided to click on the article, and it said, here's an example of a scene. I was like, oh, my word, this is ridiculous. So I watched it. And I'll sum it up for you.
Bluey's mom says this, by the way, I found out Blue is a her.
Sometimes special people come into our lives.
They stay for a bit, and then they have to go.
Bluey's mom tells her, but that's sad. Bluey says, it is.
But the bit where they were here is happy, isn't it?
And I was in my office crying. I was like, miss my grandma? You know, Like, I was like, what in the world? You know, Like, I was fine until I watched that. And here's what they said. They actually wrote it to where it would have dual meaning.
That if you were a little kid and you were sitting there listening to it, you'd be like, okay, what's next?
But then if you're an adult watching it because you've experienced loss, you've gone through some stuff, and because of that, your heart is kind of softened by things, you receive it completely different.
That's what Jesus is doing here. He's saying, listen, I'm giving the same message. But the reality is, is your heart postured in a way to receive it? That's what we have to ask ourselves. The message has not changed, but the hearts do.
And the good is that the heart can be molded and the hearts can be open. But you know what Jeremiah also says, the heart is deceitful among all things. Who can understand it?
That's why the central message here is focusing on the heart. If the heart is in the right place, the message can take root.
See, that's the thing about sin and why we desperately need the Holy Spirit. In fact, before we go any further, you know, one of the things that you'll notice throughout Scripture is that there's a direct connection between us being able to understand spiritual truths and the Holy Spirit.
In fact, y' all remember Matthew 16, when Jesus says, hey, disciples, I have a question for y'.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: All.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: Who do people say that I am?
Y' all remember what Peter did? He piped up and he said, hey, I know who you are. You are the son of the living God. You know what Jesus said back to him?
You know what, Peter? Flesh and blood did not reveal that to you. He's saying, the smarts in your head did not tell you that. He said, you got that from my Heavenly father.
First Corinthians 12:3 says, Nobody can call Jesus Lord except for the Holy Spirit, that you can't without the Holy Spirit, make him Lord of your life. And I know this is not the usual place in the sermon where we offer the invitation, but I kind of want to offer it now that if you're at a place where you have heard the message, even over the past few weeks, you've really been rethinking and thinking about the idea of the kingdom and the fact that Jesus right now is seated on his throne, he's reigning and ruling, and more importantly, he wants to sit on the throne of your life. And you're kind of analyzing what that means. You know what I mean? I want to do that, but I can't do that. I try to. Well, part of the reason is sometimes it's because you just flat out haven't given your life to Jesus.
Acts 2:38 says this. Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.
But here's what's amazing. You don't just get forgiveness from something you're saved to someone you get to receive it. Says the gift of the Holy Spirit. He didn't just say the Holy Spirit. He says a gift. And we have to see him as that. And so our ability to understand and apply truth to is directly connected to the work and the personhood of the Holy Spirit.
And the reason why that's the case is when it's anything else or anyone else in our hearts calling the shots, our heart is always going to be slanted, because that's what sin does.
Sin slants our heart. It dulls our heart. So we can't see spiritual truth. We have to have someone else reigning in our hearts to be able to receive truth.
The other part of this is also it's not that the intelligence is not needed, but, you know, it's kind of like intellectualism.
Intellectualism on its own will either probably make you be filled with pride, or it will just frustrate you because you all know how it is. Like, the more you try to learn and know, the more frustrated you get because you realize, you know.
And so, yes, we need head and heart and heart and head, but it's not the intelligence and the information in our head that's going to lead to change.
That's why we study the Book of Romans. It's grace.
It's understanding our need for the grace of God. Here's the second part.
That insight into the truth is more a matter of the heart than it is the head.
In Matthew, chapter 13, Jesus mentions it by saying, hey, listen, you've heard these things, but you're not really perceiving. You're not really understanding them.
I love the illustration of wax and clay. Y' all probably heard that the same sun, that when that sun hits wax, what does it do?
It melts it.
But when the sun hits clay, what does it do?
It hardens it. So the sun doesn't change, but what it's resting on can.
Right? There's the wax and the clay.
And so this is not an extensive list. In fact, I had like, eight, but I couldn't get them all on one slide. But I also didn't want to spend too much time on this, so kind of tried to group them together, kind of to help us maybe understand. What has it been that has kept me from receiving truth, the message of the kingdom at times?
Well, I think sometimes it's just we don't want to change.
We've always done what we've done, and we've always kind of been that way.
You know what's really interesting? In John chapter seven, there are a group of religious leaders. And keep in mind, this is in the middle of the feast in the temple. It says in verse 15, Jews were marveling at Jesus.
It says, how is this man sharing what he's sharing? Because he never studied.
So, see, they think the successful people are only those. The ones that make a difference are because they went to the right school, they learned the right things, and that's the kind of people they're gonna really be able to change. They're like, this guy is sharing stuff like, he went to school, but he didn't go to school.
He's shown us the greatest schooling right happens in here. And so that's why he says what he says next. So Jesus answered them, my teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. And then notice what he says in verse 17.
If anyone and their will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I'm speaking of my own authority.
So you have these religious leaders that knew all the things.
The truth was right in front of them. But their challenge was they didn't want to change.
I think the other part of it is this, that maybe sometimes we have unconfessed sin in our hearts.
Remember in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart, for they can what, see God.
There's the connection between our purity and our clarity. That in order for us to see the things of God. It's directly connected to what's going on here. And so if there is something Right. Sin in our hearts that's slanted against God, we. We're not gonna see him as we should. But what about this one?
And this one to me. I was talking to somebody after the early service to me is one of the most difficult if you've been there, but it's also one of the most difficult to kind of get people out of. And it's when your heart is apathetic. You remember what Jeremiah said.
He said, if you seek me with your whole heart, you will what?
You will find me.
That is awesome.
Let me say the opposite is also true.
Y' all have probably seen. And you've probably seen it in yourself. Like, I've seen it myself times where just kind of don't care.
Or maybe you have a family member, a friend that is at a place, like, spiritually speaking, they just don't really care. I don't care. But you see what you're doing, right? Yeah.
And you see what it's causing people.
Yeah.
And like, you so bad, like, want to want it for them and you can't.
And so this one, to me is one of the sneakiest of ones, is to get in a place where you just kind of don't care.
But what about this one?
Hating other people?
Because 1 John 4:20, he says you can't simultaneously say you love God and hate the people he created.
You can't say you hate them. God made them. They're made in his image. It's like you're spitting on God. It's like you're hating on God.
But sometimes we give other people's opinions more weight than God's.
See, in John 5, Jesus had just healed a man at a time when you're not supposed to do it.
The religious leaders didn't like it. And then on top of that, right after that miracle, by the way, it says that he was equal to God. So, you know, they didn't like that.
But look what it says in verse 44 of John, chapter 5.
How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from only God?
He's saying that if you go into a situation, people haven't noticed me.
Right? And it's not wrong to thank people, and we should thank people for what they do. He said. But the way you do things and you choose to do things is. Is not because you get praise or not. He said if you're operating out of, hey, will I receive glory from another? You're gonna miss the glory that comes from God alone.
And so sometimes what we do is, well, if I only get their approval, if I only get their praise, will sometimes cause us to miss out on truth again. The condition of your heart is way more important than the intelligence that's in your head. And so he quotes Isaiah and man, if there was anybody in Scripture that kind of felt this, it's him.
Isaiah would walk into situations where people were literally in the middle of sin or sinning. Talk about apathetic. If you read the context of Isaiah, he would walk into situations like, guys, you need to change. You need to repent.
And they'd be like, okay, this guy. Like, that was their mindset.
And so this is what he says. He says, listen, you have been hearing. He's like, I keep saying it over and over. You're hearing your understanding. You're seeing, but never perceiving. It says this, for the people's hearts have become calloused.
If you look at the idea of a heart becoming calloused, it's kind of just like a callous on your skin.
Did you get that overnight?
No, it takes time.
It takes time for something to be calloused.
And while God, yes, can soften a heart, it's also a reminder. There's a sense of urgency to soften the heart. Because just as it took some time to get that way, while God can, yes, work a miracle in the heart, it also takes some work to get out of that, too.
And so it says, you know, they're hardly hearing with their ears, and they have closed their eyes, otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears. And I love this verse so much.
Understand with their hearts and turn, and I will heal them.
Understand here, but notice the next part. You got to repent. Turn, and I will bring healing.
There's four hearts.
And here's what's neat about this parable is this is one of the only times Jesus explains himself. And isn't it neat that we get to hear Jesus's explanation of these four hearts?
And in this morning, I want you to ask yourself, would you say that right now you have a very hard heart?
Would you say, right now your heart's kind of shallow, divided or open?
Let's analyze each one to kind of see where we might fall. The first heart is the hard heart in Matthew, chapter 13. Look at me with. Look with me at verse 18.
Hear then the parable of the sower so now Jesus is explaining himself.
When anybody hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches it away in what has been sown in the heart.
This is what was sown along the path.
One of the podcasts that I listened to this past week said, this is the kind of person, like, they're in the audience, right? They're listening to the message.
And while they're listening to the message, they're thinking, man, that's good.
That's good.
But then they say this.
I hope so, and so hears it.
Or, man, that is good.
What's for lunch?
It's the idea. Yeah, you're hearing the right thing, but your next method is so hardened that has no place to find root.
The next one's the shallow heart.
And this is what it says about the shallow heart. It says, this is the one that was sown on rocky ground. This is the one that hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. So this sounds. It starts good. They're receiving it with joy. They're receiving it with excitement.
But then look what it says next. Yet it has no root in itself, but endures for a while. And tribulation, meaning difficulty, persecution, starts to make its way. It arises on account of the word, and immediately that person falls away.
Maybe you have been this, or maybe you've probably seen somebody be this.
This is the kind of situation where we've maybe seen before, where somebody has given their life to Jesus Christ.
And again, you may have been there, and I've been there, too, where we're so enthusiastic. We are so on fire.
And we think, like, that's not gonna miss. Like, you can just see it in their face. You can see it in their family's face. They're excited for themselves. Their family's excited for them. This is awesome. And then, like, a few weeks or months or a year later, like, where'd they go? Like, what happened? They're back in the same life as they were before. Like, what in the world happened? And we have a brother here at Madison that I just love his and appreciate his wisdom so much that one of the things he said, he said, andrew, one of the things I encourage you, if you're not in your Bible studies, make sure you encourage people. Say, listen, when you give your life to Christ, we are celebrating with you. And that is the greatest decision you will ever make.
But also understand, Satan hates that. And so he's gonna be after you.
And so it's so important to immerse yourself into the Truth. It's so important to immerse yourself into service to others. It's so important to immediately immerse yourself into God's people. Because if you don't, it's not going to take root. It's kind of like if you put out new sod in your yard and you look out, you got your coffee cup, and you're enjoying it. You're like, this is so pretty.
It is so beautiful, right? They just laid this thing out, and I just love the way it looks.
And you're admiring it, but you're not watering it, and you're not giving it the water that it needs. What eventually happens, well, it eventually dies.
That's what we're talking about here. That's the shallow heart.
But to me, if there was one that we might all probably say we fall into the most, it might be this one.
The divided heart.
This is the heart that has received the message, but the heart is distracted by so many other things.
And notice what it says in verse 22. It says, for the one that was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word.
But the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it proves to be unfruitful.
Now, I don't know if this quote is fact or not.
Made me think a little bit.
Distraction sends more people to hell than doubt.
I'll go ahead and tell you. I kind of think it might be true.
Because I don't think the way that Satan tends to operate the most is like, hey, I'm gonna create a bunch of doubt in you. He does, by the way. I've seen it.
But I do think what he wants to do is like, hey, I'm gonna put this really good thing in Andrew's life that will distract him from the most important thing.
Because if I can divide Andrew's attention, he can't be. He can't. He cannot simultaneously be king of your heart and you be distracted.
He can't seek first his kingdom and then what? All these other things will be added to you.
But here's the heart that he's after is the open heart. Look what it says in verse 23.
And as for the one who is sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. But I love how he doesn't stop there.
Because it's not just about the intelligence in your brain. It's not about just your intellect.
He said, it's the person that is bearing fruit.
I don't know if Your Bibles have a cross reference to this. But the Bible I have in my office, it cross references this as, I guess, a proof of fruit.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control.
He's saying it's not just that you understand it. What type of fruit are you bearing?
And if you keep reading, he says this, and here's what happens with that fruit.
I mean, it blows up.
In one case, it's a hundredfold or another 60 and another 30.
It begins to multiply. And so a heart is right when we welcome the word immediately, so it cannot be snatched away and we allow it to take root.
So where is your heart this morning? Would you say that you have had a little bit of a hardened heart?
I mean, you've heard all the things, but you have not really allowed them to take root.
Maybe for some of you in this room, you have a very shallow heart. You've heard the things and you were so excited about it. But that excitement, that enthusiasm has kind of wavered. Maybe for some of us, we're just divided, we're distracted.
I want to come back to this text.
I love what it said. Again, this is what Isaiah said, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.
Do you need healing?
I meant to look it up between the first and second service. Completely forgot. And so, excuse me, it's either one of the chronicles, but there's a time in Scripture where it says that Jesus kind of God poses them. If my people would just humble themselves, seek my face and pray, I will heal their land.
Y' all believe. That kind of makes me think of this, that there's a direct connection between our humility and our spiritual growth. There's a direct connection between our hearts and our spiritual growth.
There's a direct connection between our repentance and our spiritual growth.
And so if we can have the heart, the humility, and the repentance, he's saying, I will heal you.
So if you're here this morning and you're ready to make Jesus king of your heart, or maybe you're here today and you've never made that decision we talked about, to give him your life through baptism and to let the Holy Spirit be the one that guides you so you can actually start to understand those spiritual truths.
Now, I think about in this room, we have a lot of different people in a lot of different places. I do think we have those this morning that are ready to receive the message of the kingdom.
But I also know there's those of us that we realize, you know, lately I've just not been good soil.
Have a hard heart, a shallow heart or a divided one.
Please, please don't miss the opportunity for God to give you healing. If he can do it for them, he can do it for us. That's how he operates. That's what his kingdom's all about. So if you have a need, please come today While we stand and we sing this song.
