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Luke chapter 8 verse 18.

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This passage will probably seem familiar to some of you.

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We just talked about it a couple of Sundays ago, but we didn't really talk about the last

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part of verse 18.

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And so we're just going to talk briefly about it today and probably repeat a little bit

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of what we talked about a couple of Sundays ago.

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Luke chapter 8 verse 18.

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Let's pray and we'll get started.

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God, we come to you tonight.

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I thank you that we have the freedom and the privilege to come and to hear your word.

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I pray God that you would free us of the distractions of the world and the worries of the world.

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Dear Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit would be with us tonight.

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God, there is no word that I can say if it does not come from you that'll do us any good.

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But dear Lord, I pray that we would seek your word, that your Holy Spirit would work in

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each of our lives, that we would seek to listen to you and that we would seek to grow in you,

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dear Lord.

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Not to be stagnant, not to regress, but to grow in you, dear Lord.

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And so I pray that your Holy Spirit would be with us in these next few minutes.

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In Jesus' name I pray it.

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Amen.

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Now, in the verses before, Jesus had talked about the parable of these seeds that were

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sown in different kind of soils and some of them didn't have a chance to grow and some

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of them grew a little and some of them grew a little more and some of them grew a lot.

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And that was a parable.

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That was a story about seeds planted that grew that really had to do with people and

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their hearing of the word, that when we hear the word of God, when we hear the gospel of

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Jesus Christ, how do we respond to the gospel?

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And then he goes on to talk about in the next section that we're looking at tonight that

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no one lights a lamp.

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It would be foolish to have a lamp and light it and put it under a basket or hide it under

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a bed or put it somewhere that its light couldn't be seen.

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That is to say, it would be foolish for us to hear the word of God and not pay attention

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to it, to hear the word of God and let it light up our life and then to cover that up

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and not respond to it in any way.

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That would be a foolish thing.

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And so as Christians, we want to be those who hear the word of God, who listen, and

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we want to be those that when those seeds are planted that they begin to grow and sprout.

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Now, the seed along the path didn't grow at all.

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It was in one ear and out the other.

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And some of it kind of took root, but it was rocky ground.

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So it didn't have good roots and it eventually died.

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And some of it was in good ground and it really began to grow.

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But the thorns choked it out.

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The things of this world, the worries of the world, it said, came and kept it from growing.

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And perhaps something that's something we may struggle against.

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We hear the word, maybe, maybe we're pretty well rooted and we begin to grow.

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And then the worries of the world began to come in.

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The desires of the world began to come in.

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And it's really a constant battle for me.

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Maybe it's not for you.

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It's really this constant battle of these thorns trying to come in, but trying to be

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a soul that's good enough that produces good fruit.

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And sometimes those things of the world come in and kind of slow us down or get us off

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track or kind of choke us out.

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And so we stopped growing.

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Now Jesus desires for us to be a fruit that's going to produce, you know, 30, 60, 100 times

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what was sown.

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And so to do that, we want to be those who hear, those who see the light of Jesus Christ.

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It begins to work in our life and to light our soul and to remove the darkness in our

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heart and that we would respond to the word in a way that we reflect that light of Jesus

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Christ in us so that others can see it.

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And Jesus said here in verse 18, therefore take care how you listen.

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Now that's the key that kind of ties this passage and the passage before it and the

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passage after it.

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Because if you just kind of take 16 through 18 by itself without looking at the context,

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you may kind of miss the point.

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But all of this passage about the seeds and about the lamb and about his family coming

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to see him in the next passage are all about those who hear.

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He makes it a point to say that those who hear his word and do them, that is his mother,

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that is his brothers, that is his sisters.

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Those are his family, the ones who hear his word and do them.

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So this whole passage is about hearing the word of God, listening to it and doing what

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it says.

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And that's why he says, therefore take care how you listen.

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Pay attention.

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Be aware of how you are listening.

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Understand that you have heard and that you have seen and that you've been exposed to

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the word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And when you read God's word and when you hear God's word, do you live by God's word?

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And that's kind of a scary thing for me as I stand up here and tell you this because

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there are some times that I know that I see God's word or I know what God's word says

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and I don't necessarily do what it says.

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And maybe you do that too or maybe you don't, but that's the warning that Jesus gives us.

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Therefore, take care how you listen.

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That is to say, when you read it and you listen to it and you understand it, live by it.

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That it may begin to grow in you.

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Know that you need the word of God, that you need to stand on the word of God and you need

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to be eager to grow in it and hear more and to learn more.

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And then he says, for whoever has more will be given and whoever does not have even what

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he thinks he has will be taken away from him.

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So those who have more will be given.

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And I think what Jesus is saying is this, is that there are some who have received what

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he said and they have it and they're living by it and they are humble and they are eager

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to seek him and to learn more about his word and to live by that word and to grow in the

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gospel of Jesus Christ and to grow in the word of God.

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They realize that they need God, that they are sinners, that they want to soak it up,

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that they want to get more and more and more.

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Maybe there have been things like that in your life, that there's just something you

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love and you want to get more and more about it.

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You just research it, you learn everything about it.

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Sometimes you see that with people who are fans of sports teams.

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They know all these statistics from the 1973 Yankees or whoever it was and they know the

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batting averages and who got how many RBIs.

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And there are people that just, they find something that they love and they want to

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just know everything that there is to know about it.

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And maybe there are some of those things for us, something that we really love.

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Maybe our cars or hobbies or guns or our fishing trips or our video games or our technologies

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or whatever it is.

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We all have our thing and not that any of those things in and of themselves are bad,

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but there are things that we love and we just kind of, we just dig into it and we know all

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the measurements and all the specifications of all these things.

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But do we do that with the word of God?

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Do we treat the word of God as important as those things around us?

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Or do those things around us come in and choke out the word of God?

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And so if there's something that we have, if we've gotten a little bit from the word

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of God, then we need to be humble enough to say, God, I need more of your word and so

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I want to dig into it and I want to seek it and I want to understand it and I want to

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grow in it.

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And those who do that, more will be given to them.

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Those who have, those who seek, those who humble themselves before the Lord, more will

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be given to them.

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So be careful how you listen.

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And if you are one who has, then take what you listen and live on it.

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Listen to it.

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Let it have an effect in your life.

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Let it guide your decisions.

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Maybe we do a good job of that or maybe we don't do a good job of that.

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Maybe we can think of some examples in our life that we're not really reading the word

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of God or we're reading it and it don't really say what we want it to say so we kind of justify

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what we want to do and that's not good.

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So we want to be careful how we listen.

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I'm preaching to me maybe more than I'm preaching to you tonight.

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I don't know.

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Maybe y'all are all doing good.

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Maybe I'm just preaching to me.

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But we need to be careful how we listen so that what we have will grow and then listen

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to what he says.

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And whoever does not have, okay, so there are some who have that are going to do good

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and that are going to continue to grow and that are going to mature and that are going

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to produce fruit.

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That's good.

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That's what we want to do.

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That's what the Lord wants us to do.

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But he says, and whoever does not have, so some do not have.

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But what does he say about these?

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Even what he thinks he has.

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So there are some who don't have, but they think they have.

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There are some who are proud and think they know everything and they think they have it

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figured all out and they think they know it all and they're doing just right and everything

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is good.

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But what Jesus says is what they really have is nothing at all, nothing whatsoever.

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They have nothing.

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They think they have something, but they don't have anything.

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Now we see this in the scripture sometimes.

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I think probably the best group.

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We talk about it all the time.

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Pharisees.

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We see this with the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

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These were groups of religious people that really thought they had it all.

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They thought they knew the word of God.

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They were proud in that sense.

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They thought they were better than the rest of the people.

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They thought they lived by the letter of the law.

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They thought that they were the most righteous people that they were.

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They thought that they had everything figured out, but of those people, they really didn't

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have anything, at least for most of them.

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Maybe some of them were good righteous folks that really did seek God.

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But it appears as though from the scripture that there was a lot of them that didn't really

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have anything at all.

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Yeah, they looked the part.

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They said a bunch of good stuff, but really they didn't have anything they thought they

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had.

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And for whoever thinks that they have, Jesus says even what little they have is going to

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be taken away.

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So there's a little bit there, but they don't really seek God with what little bit is there

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because they're too proud to.

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And so what about us tonight?

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Therefore, be careful how you listen.

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For those who have more will be given, but those who do not have even what they think

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they have will be taken away.

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Are we those who are proud?

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Do we think we know all of the scripture?

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We understand it.

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I know this, that, and the other.

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I know more about him.

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I know more about her.

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I can tell them more than they could tell me.

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I know more about everybody.

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I know my way, my interpretations right.

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I don't even need to read the Bible anymore because I know it.

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And when we come back, when we get to that point where we're that proud, then even what

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we have, we begin to lose.

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And that's a scary thing.

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So we don't want to be those who are proud in the word of God.

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We don't want to be those who think too highly of ourselves.

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We don't want to be those who fall into the trap of religion.

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We don't want to be those who get lazy and quit reading the word of God and quit seeking

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the word of God and quit listening to the word of God because the moment we do, then

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the world begins to come in and we begin to seek the world and we begin to pay attention

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to the world and pretty soon even what we thought we had, we lose.

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So we want to be those tonight who have and who gain more.

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Those who have and who are given more.

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Those who have heard the word of God, those who listen to the word of God, those who respond

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to the word of God, those who are humble and not proud, but those who are ever studying

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and ever seeking and ever trying to learn the word of God and to live by the word of

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God.

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There's a big difference between reading the Bible and doing what the Bible says.

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And I'm certainly guilty of times of reading the Bible, but not doing what the Bible says.

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And so we don't want to be those who get in the habit of just reading the Bible.

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We want to be those who get in the habit of reading the Bible and carefully listening

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to what we hear so that we humble ourselves before the word of God and we seek God and

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say, God, I know I need to grow in you.

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I know I'm not where I need to be, but God help me to grow.

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Maybe I'm producing 30 times what was there.

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God help me to produce 60.

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Maybe I'm producing 60.

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Help me to produce 90.

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Maybe we're producing very little at all.

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God help me to produce just a little bit more tomorrow.

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And the best place for us to start is in the word of God.

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Don't matter if it'd be better to read one verse a day and to ponder on it and to let

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it soak in and to listen to what it says than to read 17 chapters a day.

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Don't matter how much you read.

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Don't matter how much you can quote.

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What matters is how much you listen to what you read.

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You can quote the whole Bible from cover to cover, but if you're not living by it and

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listening to it, that even what you have or you think you have will be taken away.

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When we humble ourselves before the word of God, pay attention to what it says and listen

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to what it says and live by what it says, then more will be given.

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And then we will begin to grow in the word of God.

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That needs to be our desire.

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That needs to be our prayers.

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As brothers and sisters in Christ, God would open our eyes and open our ears and open our

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hearts that maybe there's hardness there, maybe there's thorns there, maybe there's

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some things tangled up in there.

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And God would come through with a weed whacker and start getting some of them thorns out

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so that we'd be a fertile soil ready to grow based on what we hear from the word of God.

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Let's pray.

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God, we thank you for this good word and what a powerful, convicting word it is, dear Lord.

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I pray that you would help us all to live by this truth, by this command, God.

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I pray that you forgive me for my failures, dear Lord.

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I am the first one to say I am guilty of not paying attention to what I've heard.

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And I pray, God, that you would help me as a man and as a leader to just seek you, to

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hear your word, to listen to it, to live by it, dear Lord.

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I pray that you would help us never to be proud, to think that we know it all, but to

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humble ourselves like a child, dear Lord, that's eager to learn, that knows that we

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can only be taught by you.

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So I pray, God, that we would seek you today, that we would open our hearts, that we would

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hear your word, and that whatever we have in humility would begin to grow.

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God, let us not be those who think we have, but let us be those who know we have.

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God, I pray that whatever we have will not be taken away, that if there is sin in our

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life, if there is hardness in our heart, that you would help us to overcome that, dear Lord.

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I pray that you would help us to be a people as we are freshly starting this 2025 that

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would seek your word, meditate on it, and do our best to live by it.

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And I ask these things in Jesus' name.

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Amen.