Untitled Sermon

TURNING CRAP CHOICE INTO MIRACLE GROW

4 And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” 11. - Luke 8:4-8

Jesus told a Parable of the Sower and the Seed

He spoke this to a large group full of different people from different cities with different situations happening in their lives!

Some of these people only wanted the miracles, some wanted to discredit Jesus, while others wanted to learn and grow.

4 different kinds of soil

4 different types of ability to receive, understand, and grow in relationship

_________________________________

1st Soil

Soil of Hurt

some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, (Luke 8:5, ESV)

This soil was hard and compacted.

I can relate to this soil

Like many of us.

Walked on, made fun of, talked down too, told we were less than, told that there was something wrong with us.

Just hurt to the point of hard bitterness towards any and almost everyone.

We have such a hard shell that when people try and give us advice we get so angry because, "we" are the only ones "we" can trust.

So anything good that is attempted to be planted in our life quickly gets pluck up and taken by someone else.

You are letting someone else steal the promise that was meant for you!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

2nd Soil

SOIL of Habit

And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.11 - Luke 8:6.

When you want water to drain you make sure that it is filled or at least mostly mixed with rocks.

This allows the water to pass straight through.

Great for drainage ditch

Great for driveways

Not really good for plants

Plants need something to dig their roots into

Something that they can hold onto

Something that holds water long enough for them to soak up the nutrients.

I can relate to this soil

We are all creators of habit

Get home from school and play video games

Get home from work and watch netflix

Doom scroll on TicTok or Instagram

Maybe none of those are your habits

Maybe you would rather make a habit out of texting your friends

Maybe you have a habit of putting yourself in other peoples business

Maybe you have a habit of searching adult websites

The point is:

Whatever your habit is:

it takes up your time

it takes up your energy

it takes up preferred space in your mind.

I bet some of you are even thinking of your habit right now, instead of tuning into what I saying

The Gospel truth

The truth about what Jesus has already done to give you the oppourtunity for life and life “more abundant”

That is the “seed” that has been planted

And in the “Rocky Soil” the seed does start to take root.

The blessings God sends your way

The people God sends to reinforce the seed that was planted

The physical “Words of God” in the Bible

These are all the “water” that the Holy Spirit gives you so that your seed can grow.

The only problem is that the “water” is draining straight through the “Rocky Soil of your habits”

The seed never gets enough water because you don’t keep it around long enough.

Your habits are more important than your water source so the passion you once had for Jesus withers and dies

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Soil of Hurts

Soil of Habits

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

3rd Soil

Soil of Hang-ups

And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 11 -Luke8:8.

Hang-ups are the thorns of offense that set you off “emotionally”

Thorns have little pricks on them.

When you touch them they hurt and sometimes even draw blood.

Have you ever gotten your finger pricked by a thorn on a rose?

It hurts.

And that little prick causes an annoying throbbing pain for awhile afterwards.

At least that how I remember it when I pricked my finger on a thorn.

Thorns also have a different characteristic

Thorns are vines

Thorns will grow and wrap themselves around whatever they are near

Limiting their potential to grow.

We all have some kind of “thorn” in our soil

I’m sure there is something that people do or say that “pricks” you immediately

When you get pricked, you react “emotionally”

Maybe not verbally in the moment

But you do in your mind

And that “thorn prick” throbs for days

I have thorns

My thorns are when someone messes with my family

Say whatever you want about me, but mess with my family…watch out

My thorns are also when you attach Jesus in front of me

My thorns are when someone messes with one of you

Believe it or not, I consider you all to be my family

Your thorns might be different than mine

Maybe you get pricked when someone doesn’t do what they said they would do

Maybe you get pricked when your parents “change their mind” and now you can’t go hang out with your friends.

Maybe you “did something” with “somebody” and those people that you thought were your friends won’t stop talking about it and you feel ashamed

Maybe you don’t have a good relationship with your parents or you don’t really know one or both of your parents

And when you see happy families you start to get jealious

Maybe you want to be seen and you feel like you are not getting an opportunity for people to see what you can do

There are more examples I could use

All of these examples are just examples of how a prick causes you lash out or hold on tight to an emotional pain

That emotional pain BECOMES your experiences you use to “protect” yourselves

And you end up getting hung-up on it

Your hang-ups will grow as you grow spiritually BUT eventually that hang-up will choke out your spiritual growth.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Soil of Hurt

Soil of Habit

Soil of Hang-ups

All 3 of these different “Soils” are full of crap

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Only one type can receive the truth and holdout it while the others wonder, diminish, and die.

That is the 4th soil

The “Good Soil”

I believe that there is NO good soil that started out “Good”

Soil starts our full of “crap”

Some figurative and some literal crap

Soil only becomes good after the crap is tilled up

Soil only becomes good after the land is plowed and prepared

Soil only becomes good after it has been fertilized

This is the process of cultivating the land.

[This is where scripture gets interesting]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You might have identified with one of the original 3 soils…

If you did, I’m not goin to ask you to raise your hands

I want to tell you ME TOO!!!

We all have soil of Hurts, Habits, and Hang-ups

If we didn’t then we wouldn’t have needed a Savior!!!

The question isn’t what kind of soil are you

The question is:

What kind of soil are you going to continue being?

Every Christian on this earth has soil of Hurts, Habits, and Hang-ups at some point in their lives

Sometimes they are all three at the same time!

Be honest with what kind of soil you are: then choose

Do I want to remain this way?

Is this Hurt, Habit, or Hang-up working for me?

And if your answer is:

I want to become good soil

That is going to take work.

You see that in verse 15

Do you want to find out how to “work” on cultivate your soil?

As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.11 -Luke 8:15

Hearing the word

Actively “listening” to God’s word

Active listening is work

Active listening to God’s work is the equivalent to breaking up the compacted ground of Hurts

Making it soft enough for brand new roots to grow in it.

Actively “hear the word

Actively “gripping onto” what you heard in God’s word

Gripping onto is work

It takes energy

It takes your time

It take priority in your mind

And you have to “work” at keep choosing to keep it in the front of your mind.

But that means that you will have to pull out the rocks of Habits

Because those Rocks to draining your time

Draining your energy

Taking priority

Actively replacing the rocks of Habits

Requires you to be honest with yourself, with God, and the people God has placed in your lives to guide your growth

When you are honest about your habits, you are taking the first step in creating a “good heart”

Actively grip onto what you heard from God’s word, be honest about what you are wanting to do and throw out your rocks of habits to make room the truth that wants to root

Actively wait

This might be the hardest one

No one likes to wait in Western Culture

Most people want instant gratification

Few play the long game gratification

To bear fruit is to wait patently for the plant to mature so that flowers can bloom, get pollinated, and grow into sweet fruit

The fruit of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and self-control.

For fruit to grow the plant needs room to mature

But it can’t if you are trying to grow in self centered “crap”

If you continue to be focused on your crappy experiences

Then the thorns of negative emotion will take root.

That negative emotion will grow alongside the plant that God is trying to mature in your heart.

And the negative emotion will prevent your ability to bloom and bear fruit

Which means: you will need to pluck out the negative emotions.

And you pluck them out by identifying the cause and working through the feeling, not sitting in the feeling and dwelling on it.

And once you work through the feelings.

You take that “CRAP” experience and mix that into the softened, Non-rocky, soil that you have prepared

That is what fertilizes your soil

Giving you those “ME TOO” moments from your past that will end up being what God uses to speak into someone else’s life.

Because God waste’s NO experience.

He will Glorify Himself in ALL of your experiences

The good ones and the crap ones.

If you are willing to:

Be patient while He creates your fruit for you to bear.

2. Hold it fast in an honest and good heart

3. Bear fruit with patience

You want to become Good soil?

Actively Listen

Actively grip onto what you heard

Actively be honest with yourself and God

Actively wait

This is how you Cultivate your “Crap Choices into Miracle Grow”

Questions

Can you name a time when you got hurt and started to close yourself off?

How did you work through that?

What are your habits that take the majority of your time, energy, and mental capacity?

Do those habits prevent you from doing other things you want to do?

What is a topic that you are sensitive about?

How do you respond when other people “prick” that nerve?

Do you want to stay that way?

TURNING CRAP CHOICE INTO MIRACLE GROW

4 And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” 11. - Luke 8:4-8

Jesus told a Parable of the Sower and the Seed

He spoke this to a large group full of different people from different cities with different situations happening in their lives!

Some of these people only wanted the miracles, some wanted to discredit Jesus, while others wanted to learn and grow.

4 different kinds of soil

4 different types of ability to receive, understand, and grow in relationship

_________________________________

1st Soil

Soil of Hurt

some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, (Luke 8:5, ESV)

This soil was hard and compacted.

I can relate to this soil

Like many of us.

Walked on, made fun of, talked down too, told we were less than, told that there was something wrong with us.

Just hurt to the point of hard bitterness towards any and almost everyone.

We have such a hard shell that when people try and give us advice we get so angry because, "we" are the only ones "we" can trust.

So anything good that is attempted to be planted in our life quickly gets pluck up and taken by someone else.

You are letting someone else steal the promise that was meant for you!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

2nd Soil

SOIL of Habit

 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.11  - Luke 8:6.

When you want water to drain you make sure that it is filled or at least mostly mixed with rocks.

This allows the water to pass straight through.

Great for drainage ditch

Great for driveways

Not really good for plants

Plants need something to dig their roots into

Something that they can hold onto

Something that holds water long enough for them to soak up the nutrients.

I can relate to this soil

We are all creators of habit

Get home from school and play video games

Get home from work and watch netflix

Doom scroll on TicTok or Instagram

Maybe none of those are your habits

Maybe you would rather make a habit out of texting your friends

Maybe you have a habit of putting yourself in other peoples business

Maybe you have a habit of searching adult websites

The point is:

Whatever your habit is:

it takes up your time

it takes up your energy

it takes up preferred space in your mind.

I bet some of you are even thinking of your habit right now, instead of tuning into what I saying

The Gospel truth

The truth about what Jesus has already done to give you the oppourtunity for life and life “more abundant”

That is the “seed” that has been planted

And in the “Rocky Soil” the seed does start to take root.

The blessings God sends your way

The people God sends to reinforce the seed that was planted

The physical “Words of God” in the Bible

These are all the “water” that the Holy Spirit gives you so that your seed can grow.

The only problem is that the “water” is draining straight through the “Rocky Soil of your habits”

The seed never gets enough water because you don’t keep it around long enough.

Your habits are more important than your water source so the passion you once had for Jesus withers and dies

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Soil of Hurts

Soil of Habits

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

3rd Soil

Soil of Hang-ups

 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 11 -Luke8:8.

Hang-ups are the thorns of offense that set you off “emotionally”

Thorns have little pricks on them.

When you touch them they hurt and sometimes even draw blood.

Have you ever gotten your finger pricked by a thorn on a rose?

It hurts.

And that little prick causes an annoying throbbing pain for awhile afterwards.

At least that how I remember it when I pricked my finger on a thorn.

Thorns also have a different characteristic

Thorns are vines

Thorns will grow and wrap themselves around whatever they are near

Limiting their potential to grow.

We all have some kind of “thorn” in our soil

I’m sure there is something that people do or say that “pricks” you immediately

When you get pricked, you react “emotionally”

Maybe not verbally in the moment

But you do in your mind

And that “thorn prick” throbs for days

I have thorns

My thorns are when someone messes with my family

Say whatever you want about me, but mess with my family…watch out

My thorns are also when you attach Jesus in front of me

My thorns are when someone messes with one of you

Believe it or not, I consider you all to be my family

Your thorns might be different than mine

Maybe you get pricked when someone doesn’t do what they said they would do

Maybe you get pricked when your parents “change their mind” and now you can’t go hang out with your friends.

Maybe you “did something” with “somebody” and those people that you thought were your friends won’t stop talking about it and you feel ashamed

Maybe you don’t have a good relationship with your parents or you don’t really know one or both of your parents

And when you see happy families you start to get jealious

Maybe you want to be seen and you feel like you are not getting an opportunity for people to see what you can do

There are more examples I could use

All of these examples are just examples of how a prick causes you lash out or hold on tight to an emotional pain

That emotional pain BECOMES your experiences you use to “protect” yourselves

And you end up getting hung-up on it

Your hang-ups will grow as you grow spiritually BUT eventually that hang-up will choke out your spiritual growth.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Soil of Hurt

Soil of Habit

Soil of Hang-ups

All 3 of these different “Soils” are full of crap

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Only one type can receive the truth and holdout it while the others wonder, diminish, and die.

That is the 4th soil

The “Good Soil”

I believe that there is NO good soil that started out “Good”

Soil starts our full of “crap”

Some figurative and some literal crap

Soil only becomes good after the crap is tilled up

Soil only becomes good after the land is plowed and prepared

Soil only becomes good after it has been fertilized

This is the process of cultivating the land.

[This is where scripture gets interesting]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You might have identified with one of the original 3 soils…

If you did, I’m not goin to ask you to raise your hands

I want to tell you ME TOO!!!

We all have soil of Hurts, Habits, and Hang-ups

If we didn’t then we wouldn’t have needed a Savior!!!

The question isn’t what kind of soil are you

The question is:

What kind of soil are you going to continue being?

Every Christian on this earth has soil of Hurts, Habits, and Hang-ups at some point in their lives

Sometimes they are all three at the same time!

Be honest with what kind of soil you are: then choose

Do I want to remain this way?

Is this Hurt, Habit, or Hang-up working for me?

And if your answer is:

I want to become good soil

That is going to take work.

You see that in verse 15

Do you want to find out how to “work” on cultivate your soil?

As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.11  -Luke 8:15

Hearing the word

Actively “listening” to God’s word

Active listening is work

Active listening to God’s work is the equivalent to breaking up the compacted ground of Hurts

Making it soft enough for brand new roots to grow in it.

Actively “hear the word

Actively “gripping onto” what you heard in God’s word

Gripping onto is work

It takes energy

It takes your time

It take priority in your mind

And you have to “work” at keep choosing to keep it in the front of your mind.

But that means that you will have to pull out the rocks of Habits

Because those Rocks to draining your time

Draining your energy

Taking priority

Actively replacing the rocks of Habits

Requires you to be honest with yourself, with God, and the people God has placed in your lives to guide your growth

When you are honest about your habits, you are taking the first step in creating a “good heart”

Actively grip onto what you heard from God’s word, be honest about what you are wanting to do and throw out your rocks of habits to make room the truth that wants to root

Actively wait

This might be the hardest one

No one likes to wait in Western Culture

Most people want instant gratification

Few play the long game gratification

To bear fruit is to wait patently for the plant to mature so that flowers can bloom, get pollinated, and grow into sweet fruit

The fruit of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and self-control.

For fruit to grow the plant needs room to mature

But it can’t if you are trying to grow in self centered “crap”

If you continue to be focused on your crappy experiences

Then the thorns of negative emotion will take root.

That negative emotion will grow alongside the plant that God is trying to mature in your heart.

And the negative emotion will prevent your ability to bloom and bear fruit

Which means: you will need to pluck out the negative emotions.

And you pluck them out by identifying the cause and working through the feeling, not sitting in the feeling and dwelling on it.

And once you work through the feelings.

You take that “CRAP” experience and mix that into the softened, Non-rocky, soil that you have prepared

That is what fertilizes your soil

Giving you those “ME TOO” moments from your past that will end up being what God uses to speak into someone else’s life.

Because God waste’s NO experience.

He will Glorify Himself in ALL of your experiences

The good ones and the crap ones.

If you are willing to:

Be patient while He creates your fruit for you to bear.

2. Hold it fast in an honest and good heart

3. Bear fruit with patience

You want to become Good soil?

Actively Listen

Actively grip onto what you heard

Actively be honest with yourself and God

Actively wait

This is how you Cultivate your “Crap Choices into Miracle Grow”

Questions

Can you name a time when you got hurt and started to close yourself off?

How did you work through that?

What are your habits that take the majority of your time, energy, and mental capacity?

Do those habits prevent you from doing other things you want to do?

What is a topic that you are sensitive about?

How do you respond when other people “prick” that nerve?

Do you want to stay that way?