Turning Spiritual Ground
Turning Spiritual Ground; nv 4/10/05 a.m. (Lk 8:4-15)
OS: 1 Farming in Mexico – “Ford 3000, 3-bottom plow” / “horse & mule” – Spring is a time for turning ground.
I. Text – Luke 8:4-15
A. 4-21 is one section that focuses on what a person does with the Word of God.
B. The parable of the Sower is followed by the revealing nature of light – so listen carefully for whoever has will be given more. And then Jesus’ statement about family, “those who hear the Word of God and do it, are My mother, and my brothers…”
C. Read text: 4-15 (2-5)
II. 6 The Parable of the Sower is very familiar so it can be tempting to think to yourself, “I’ve heard this story, hundreds of times before, and there is nothing new for me here.”
A. Because we think we know this story so well, we can close our ears to what the Lord wants to say to us.
B. That’s the point of the parable!
C. There is something about this parable you probably haven’t thought about, and I’m going to share that with you today – but first lets consider the gist…
1. Jesus is speaking about the crowd in the hearing of the crowd.
2. He is speaking about the Words of God that come from Him.
TS] For the longest time, I thought that this parable was all about how someone responds to the saving message of the gospel. This story is not just about hearing the salvation message. God’s Word comes to us many times, and the condition of our heart will determine what happens to that Word.
Four types of hearts:
I. 7 Hard Heart. (Path)
A. Life is hard and unfair, so it’s common for people to respond to life with becoming hard hearted.
1. Protection mechanism
B. When other people attack you, abuse you, gossip about you, slander you, or hurt you, the natural response is to protect yourself.
1. You will either rise up and lash back; recoil and put up a wall to shield yourself, or run in order to escape.
2. Regardless you have a tendency to hold on to the hurt and play back in your mind the scenes of attack and hear over and over again the hurtful words that were spoken.
3. As you harbor those images and words you can become hardened by bitterness.
4. Through un-forgiveness and resentment, you can become so hard that your heart is unresponsive to God’s Word and your life gets stuck and never changes.
C. When your heart becomes hard you can rationalize anything - Nita Friedman is not the type of person you would imagine to be involved in a police pursuit. Still, that's what happened on U.S. highway 95 after Bonners Ferry, Idaho, police chief Mike Hutter tried to stop her for reckless driving. Hutter flipped on his lights and siren, but instead of pulling over, the 66-year-old woman pulled away. Police chased the woman through two counties. The chase did not end until after the State Police put a spike strip in the road in front of Friedman's car. After driving over it, the woman tried to keep going, but with three flat tires escape became impossible. What astounded law enforcement officers was that throughout the entire chase, Friedman never went over the speed limit. Once, she even stopped behind a vehicle that was making a left turn. While running from the law, Nita Friedman was determined not to break the law.
1. It's like the pastor facing expulsion from her church. Rev. Irene Elizabeth Stroud vows she has not violated her denomination's trust, but acknowledges she lives with her lesbian lover.
2. It's like the man who maintains the highest standards of integrity in his business relationships, yet candidly admits to filing false tax forms to the IRS.
3. It's like when I pray for God's will to be done and then insist on having things my own way.
4. It's like hiding sin in my heart while offering worship.
5. It's obedience while running away. It’s hard-heartedness.
II. 8 Shallow Heart (rocky ground)
A. God’s Word has no lasting impact, no depth in the heart.
1. Looking for an emotional lift, hear the Word, accept it with joy, but don’t do anything when they leave church.
2. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.
B. Those with a shallow heart will sometimes feel spiritually dry, and comment that the church is just not meeting their needs and they feel empty.
1. Yet, they don’t open His Word on a daily basis, don’t pray on a daily basis.
2. If you are only fed on Sunday you will starve spiritually.
C. You might feel emotionally uplifted for awhile because God’s Word is good every time you hear it, but you cannot live without getting rooted. You cannot have only head knowledge and emotional lifts, you must have a heart that is fertile and deep. Not shallow and rocky under the surface.
III. 9 Divided Heart (Thorns)
A. Distracted and anxious heart
1. Satan’s battle cry is “divide and conquer”
2. Matthew 6:33, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
3. The man who tries to walk two roads will split his pants. There is no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery.
B. "Earlier in this century, someone claimed that we work at our play and play at our work. Today the confusion has deepened: we worship our work, work at our play, and play at our worship." —Leland Ryken, author and Wheaton College professor
C. I often think: "A life is like a day; it goes by so fast. If I am so careless with my days, how can I be careful with my life?" I know that somehow I have not fully come to believe that urgent things can wait while I attend to what is truly important. It finally boils down to a question of deep and strong conviction. Once I am truly convinced that preparing the heart is more important than preparing the Christmas tree I will be a lot less frustrated at the end of a day. (Henri Nouwen)
D. (Questions)
1. What is it that I’m really living for?
2. Am I living for myself or for God?
3. Am I in control or is God?
4. Do I really trust God or my credit cards when trouble comes?
E. Making a life is more significant that making a living.
IV. 10 Noble & Good Heart
A. God is about life-change, the production of fruit.
1. God wants to see His Word produce fruit in our lives.
2. Galatians 5:22, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
B. When my 4-year-old son, Matthew, was dressing himself for preschool one morning, he chose to wear a pair of underpants with a Fruit of the Loom label inside. "Mommy," he explained to me, "I want to wear these because they have the fruit of the spirit in them!"
C. John 15 “I am the vine and you are the branches”
1. 11 Jeremiah 17:7-8, “But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
TS] 12 There is yet one thing maybe you haven’t considered about this parable.
How did the good soil get good? A farmer took livestock off the field, and went to the field many days and hauled rock out, pulled weeds and thorns, plowed (turned) the ground. Etc.
The parable is not just about taking the good Word of God in, but it’s also about getting the bad stuff out.
The field is your life choice:
Hardened by bitterness?
Rocky with hidden sin?
Clustered with the cares of the world?
13 God wants to bring about life-change in your life. Jesus is very clear here: like the farmer we are responsible for preparing the field, but He is responsible for making the crop grow and produce fruit.
In other words, if you would just get rid of those things that hinder His Word from your heart, He could bring about a great newness of life for you. A bumper crop. You can’t sit around and wait on God to remove the rocks and pull the thorns, He’s given you that choice.