WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.000 The Kingdom of God Part 5: The Soil of Our Hearts. Last week I spoke about how God gets to your heart. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:12.000 This morning, the soil of our hearts. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:18.000 First point. I've got a big announcement next Sunday. Be here. 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:30.000 Point two. As we mature, as we grow, as we get older, as Christians, don't you find we get a deeper sense of the limitations of our own minds 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:40.000 and our unconscious habits that we get back to again and again and again, and our minds can get clogged. 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:45.000 Thoughts, ideas, opinions that come against us. 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:52.000 You see, two things are trying to happen at the same time in a spiritual level. 00:00:52.000 --> 00:01:00.000 You need to understand the one is, God is inclusive and he wants you regardless of what you're going through. 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:10.000 Do you see in the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, there's not one person who called out to God, who God did not hear, reach out to, or respond to. 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:20.000 I want you to see that there is an enemy who, when you. When God the Father is trying to draw you closer to Himself, there's an enemy who will come to pull you away. 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:22.000 And he will. 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:27.000 He'll get you here. He'll get you in the way you think. Because when you talk, we all see it, we all hear it. 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:33.000 But when you think, no one does except you. 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:40.000 And in our fallen condition, our minds are often turned toward the wrong things. And we can't think the thoughts we need to think. 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:50.000 We can't stop our wills. And so what happens is, instead of automatically turning to God like we're supposed to, we'll end up going down other places. 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:52.000 And Jesus knows this. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:02:00.000 And an essential adjustment is in our lives is the investment of taking care of our minds by cultivating the way we think. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:05.000 We are all responsible for the way we think. And the way you think normally causes the way you act. 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:12.000 And you will find that the messy or the disordered mind becomes obsessive. 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:18.000 And when you have bedraggled thoughts and you aren't clear, you don't know how to act. You don't know what to believe, you don't know what to think. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:28.000 You don't know what comes next. And it's into this context that Jesus wants you and I to know that we can't allow any old thought just to run through our minds. 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:32.000 You got to say, there are some thoughts I won't think. 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:42.000 In the Bible, in the New Testament, the word for your soul is the word psyche, and that encompasses a person's whole being. 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:50.000 Your mind, your thoughts, your heart, your will and your emotions are all entwined in and affected by one another. 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:53.000 Would you agree by that it's not just women. 00:02:53.000 --> 00:03:02.000 For those of you who watch that. What was that? Mark Gungor? Men with their boxes and girls with how everything's connected. I think that's a bit. 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:10.000 I think it's more than that. I think guys are just as busy in the way we think. We're just far more obviously dignified about how we do it and humble. 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:17.000 But Jesus wants us to understand there is an effect in the soil of our hearts. 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:23.000 Your mind is a breeding ground. And he wants to get to us and help us understand the nature of the soil. 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:30.000 Because friends, sometimes our reactions, our responses is because of the state of the soil. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:40.000 And you know what? Sometimes you don't know it sometimes. Have you ever looked at a sunflower? Ever been those stupid plays when you're a kid and they put that stupid flower on 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:45.000 and you got to be like a daisy or thank God it never happened to me it's a punishment. 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:50.000 But some of you have been there. You know, I got a blow in the wind and you don't know how stupid you look. Just we do. 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:57.000 And the only people who like you on the stage is your parents and your grandparents. Everyone else is like, oh what's that? 00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:05.000 Are you hearing me? And sometimes we don't know the thing we projecting that's coming out of here, but others do. 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:08.000 And so Jesus tries to help us. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:15.000 So the first soil he tries to help us with. In the passage I'm going to read, it's out of Matthew chapter 13 if you want to turn there or just follow the screen. 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:20.000 Matthew chapter 13. I'll read from verse three. 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:26.000 He told many stories in the form of parables. I read this last week, such as this one. 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:30.000 Listen exclamation which means really listen. 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:38.000 A farmer went out to plant some seeds. As he scattered them across his field, some seeds fell on a footpath and the birds came and ate them. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:45.000 The ground, the soil along the footpath is the soil of distraction. 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:52.000 The first thing Jesus points out at the beginning of this parable is there are birds. There's an enemy watching a bird, there is a picture of an enemy. 00:04:52.000 --> 00:05:00.000 Your life is being watched by the enemy all the time. There's never a moment you free from the gaze of the enemy 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:05.000 and he simply snatches the word out of your mind. 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:15.000 And the emphasis, what Jesus is saying is you've got to actively hold on to the word, make it a priority read, meditate on your Bible. 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:22.000 So Jesus wants to bring the Word, the Logos, the self acting Word into your life. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:30.000 And we're all in this room going to hear the same words, us watching them on the air, we're all going to hear the same word, but it's going to hit different kinds of soil. 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:35.000 And the first soil is the soil along the footpath. It's the soil of distraction. 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:40.000 The enemy finds many ways to get the word out of your mind. Different things demand our attention all the time. 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:50.000 It's the way the mind works. Can I suggest that actually one of the biggest enemies you and I face is screen time. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:58.000 Think of the hours we could have devoted to God, seeking his word, finding him, where we find ourselves, all of us doing just things that are irrelevant. 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:00.000 Distraction. 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:08.000 And when the enemy is describing being described as stealing seeds away, he's saying that the devil is active in your hearing process. 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:13.000 He doesn't want people to truly hear the word, so he will distract you. 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:20.000 Often it'll be little things. I've got no time. When I spend time with people, I try and talk to them about what Dr. 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:23.000 Yanni Boetzer taught me about the Times Square. 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:32.000 And if you were to work out that you have about seven times 28 is 168 hours in a week, you got 40 hours. You work, you sleep roughly about the same. 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:40.000 If you start working out what you do in your time blocks, you will discover that your average person has over 40 unaccounted four hours in a week. 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:48.000 They can't say what they did with that time, but which is the equivalent of a full work week. Just do the maths yourself one of these days. 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:55.000 And you see, the enemy comes to distract because he does not want that time used. Well. 00:06:55.000 --> 00:07:02.000 If he's not going to distract, number two, he's going to distort, which means the invitation of God, come to Jesus. 00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:10.000 God wants to forgive your sin. The enemy distorts it to mean from the day you get saved, Jesus is going to make sure you're the head, not the tail. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:13.000 Everything's going to be a blessing. 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:20.000 Your life's going to flow so well, nothing will ever go wrong. Then the problem is the moment something does happen, you run the other way 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:25.000 because your perceived needs aren't getting met. You have a distorted view of what the Bible says God will do for you. 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:32.000 And then we lay expectations on God in our immaturity that aren't met. And who gets the blame? Always the Lord. 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:35.000 There's no inward turning to God. 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:42.000 There's no inner turning from self toward others. There's no humility and surrender to the truth. 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:45.000 When the enemy gets you to distort the Word of God. 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:52.000 What he's doing is he's getting you to use God instead of submitting to God. I became a Christian to get this need met, that need met. 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:55.000 I come here for this. I need this. I want this. I want this. 00:07:55.000 --> 00:08:05.000 I'm actually coming to use God because he's more powerful than the friends I have at the moment. And when it gets dashed, the seed is taken away. 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:10.000 The last one you'll find the enemy is pretty good at distraction, distortion, and then loneliness. 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:18.000 Mother Teresa said, in the west there is so much loneliness. The greatest disease in the west today is being unwanted, unloved and uncared for. 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:25.000 Loneliness is this when the enemy does his level best to keep people apart. 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:32.000 Jesus says, you become one body, you become one together. The enemy hates it. When we are one, he hates it. 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:42.000 He will do everything to disrupt people. He makes his hardest effort to break unity because he knows that the Lord commands blessing wherever there is unity 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:50.000 in the workplace, family, school, even church. People believe that if I don't get along with certain people, I must just have nothing to do with him, 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:52.000 just avoid them and. 00:08:52.000 --> 00:09:00.000 And thought suckers come to us over and over and over again. We're so busy letting feelings run our lives and doing things our way, 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:08.000 we cannot hear the message of love, of forgiveness, of grace, of mercy, of understanding the moment something doesn't work for us anymore. 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:12.000 We say, this doesn't spin my wheels, and I'm out. 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:20.000 It's an inner loneliness. And that inner loneliness will not allow you to engage the imperfect relational interactions we have with other people. 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:28.000 Because as much as no one else is perfect, nor you, and the enemy tries to make you think that you're better than others, 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:32.000 so there's a breakdown of relationship. 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:40.000 And then the word of God that comes in to cause us to be a people together on this earth gets pulled away by the enemy. 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:45.000 The word of the Lord gets stolen. This is on the footpath. 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:50.000 And you understand the footpath. People are on it the whole time. It's distraction, there's noise, but there's not only that. 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:58.000 The second one is the stony ground, verse 5. Other seed fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:02.000 The seed sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:08.000 But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun. And since they didn't have deep roots, they died in the stony ground. 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:15.000 Jesus is saying, these are people who love the Word. They hear it. They respond to the gospel. What a word. 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:25.000 Wow. I love what I'm hearing. They love it immediately, but they don't receive the Word at The deep level of the soul where it can penetrate the depth of personality. 00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:35.000 Personality is the place you live from. These seeds don't take root because there isn't something within the person's character to take hold of. 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:45.000 You see, your character is the internal overall structure of a person that is revealed by long running patterns of behavior from which our actions automatically arise. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:52.000 Your personality runs your life the way you are. Your very personality, from how you were shaped as a child, determines your interaction with others. 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:58.000 Remember the sunflower? And that's how you live toward other people all the time. 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:05.000 And you know, what we'll do is we'll justify our every decision and our every action. But that is the reality. 00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:10.000 And there isn't a character to hold on to that deep root. 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:18.000 It shows itself in our thinking, our choices, our habitual ways of behavior becomes obvious in our relationships. 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:28.000 It's the way you lean and the way you think, the sorry. Your thoughts are directed by your feelings which affect your responses and your social relationships. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:35.000 That's what's happening in the second category, the the seed Jesus word wants to get in there. Now you're not distracted. 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:38.000 Now there is something inside you. 00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:45.000 There's a bedrock, something like a failure of character that doesn't allow the roots to get in. 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:55.000 And you will not go into the Word of God. And usually all the commentators seem to be agreed the cause for this is no real repentance, 00:11:55.000 --> 00:12:00.000 because repentance breaks hardness and pride and makes it humble. 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:08.000 The Lord draws near to the humble. He resists the proud. And so you find in this area of stony ground, 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:15.000 it's the I don't appreciate the change that's got to come when I embrace this Word. 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:22.000 So I want to love the Word. I just don't want to do anything with the Word so it gets stolen. Without the roots of character, this good news withers. 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:30.000 Then you get the third kind, which is the thorny ground. Other seeds, verse seven fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants. 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:35.000 Now this of course is concern for self. 00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:45.000 And he's saying here, where the soil of the Word of the Lord comes to you, the Logos takes root. But other things also take root. 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:55.000 So now in this instance, you're allowing the Word into you, but you're also allowing the cares of this world, the worries of this world, to take root in the same soil 00:12:55.000 --> 00:13:00.000 at the same time as the Word does. 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:08.000 And you allow a competition between the two. The worries of this life, the lure of wealth. Jesus said. 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:12.000 Mark 4 says, the desire for other things. 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:15.000 Luke 8 says the pleasures of. Of this life. 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:25.000 Luke 8:14 says they never grow to maturity. The thorns are the things that keep us too preoccupied to give thought to the Word or the Logos when it presents itself. 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:35.000 Cares of this world war, social tension, famine, failure of our economic system, unemployment. 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:42.000 I've tried to write some things down. Life risk, Donald Trump. There are things that you can put in place that you allow in, 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:45.000 you meditate on, you think about. 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:50.000 And I want to tell you, living in this beautiful land of ours, there's enough to worry about. 00:13:50.000 --> 00:14:00.000 And if you allow that, the same primacy as the word of God and your devotion, it creates thorns that come in and choke the very word that God wants to give us. 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:08.000 Because remember, he doesn't come to save us from this world, he comes to save us in it. 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:18.000 And what we want is a Christianity, which is so neat and tenderized by that we basically live in the Maldives, and then we sing with our harp and go straight to glory. 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:25.000 It's not what the Bible teaches. As I said, the Bible teaches through the kingdom of God. 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:32.000 An invasion in this present world with people who live in it the same. What makes you and I unique is not that we are not in this world. 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:35.000 We're in it, we're just not of it. 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:38.000 And we live differently. We don't allow things to get choked. 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:40.000 Matthew 6:24. 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:48.000 Jesus said, you can't serve God and be enslaved to money. Our test for considering whether we're in bondage to our stuff, including food and clothing, 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:55.000 is to consider how much of our time and thinking do we give to these things? How ready are we to give something away if God asks us to give it away? 00:14:55.000 --> 00:15:02.000 How ready are we to let go of the thorns? Choking or they not there. The mind is too full. 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:10.000 Jesus said in Matthew 6:25, this is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life. Whether you have enough food or drink or enough clothes to wear. 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:18.000 Isn't life more than food in your body, more than clothing? He's not saying, don't think about ironing your food and ironing or ironing your clothes or cooking your food. 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:28.000 He's saying, what I want you to understand is that material things, if material things are uppermost in your thoughts, it'll run your life 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:32.000 and you'll govern your life by those things. 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:40.000 Jesus goes on in verse 27 of Matthew 6, can all your worries add a single moment to your life? 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:48.000 And then he closes off that argument in verse 33 that you and I know so well. Seek the kingdom of God above all else. 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:55.000 And Live righteously and he will give you everything you need. The thorns keep the soil dirty enough that they can cover the word that's being given you. 00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:00.000 I wonder how many of you this morning got issues on your plate. 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:08.000 And you'll look at this and I'm hearing you, but I've just got to make some mental notes quick of some stuff I've got to go and do. Thorns. 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:15.000 And then Jesus says there's a fourth kind. We all know the story so well, which is fertile soil, verse 8. 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:23.000 Still other seed fell on fertile soil and they produced a crop that was 30, 60, even 100 times as much as had been planted. 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:35.000 Have you ever thought about that? Thirty, sixty or a hundred times? Imagine God gives one word to you, just one, and you hang on to and you nurture that one word sufficiently, 00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:40.000 you get back 30, 60 to 100 times in your life. 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:50.000 The benefit of what? That one word that was given to you, a small seed, a logos that settles well into the good soil of your heart 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:55.000 puts a significantly productive harvest in place. 00:16:55.000 --> 00:17:05.000 And as that seed of the Word grows, it produces a harvest of healthy kingdom activity. How do you get 30, 60 hundredfold? 00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:10.000 It means you get active with the word God has given you. 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:18.000 You get active into this world, demonstrating the kingdom of God bearing fruit for others to come and eat of. 00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:28.000 In Luke 8:15, the NLT puts it like this. And the seed that falls on good soil represented honest, good hearted people who hear God's word 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:33.000 cling to it and patiently produce a huge harvest. 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:42.000 So how do you do that? Well, you don't just hear the word, you hold onto it and you act in accordance with it. 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:50.000 So when God speaks something to you, get a revelation from the Bible, go and do the things God said. 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:52.000 I've told you a story about that friend I had admission school with. 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:58.000 He actually came here one time, twice I think to our meetings, because he lives down in Port Alfred. 00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:02.000 And he irritated the life out of me. Remember I told you he irritated the life out of me. 00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:10.000 Projects due Monday morning. He always did it Sunday night and always around midnight and left the light on and. 00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:13.000 And I'm trying to sleep and he's busy working and. 00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:20.000 And then he's. I stepped. We stepped on two mattresses in a loft, not even a door or a window or anything. 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:30.000 The loft of the meeting hall. That's how I slept for a year. And I'm with this oak and, and between us was this pile of laundry that never got done on his side, 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:35.000 which meant that when he wasn't there his aroma was. 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:45.000 Are you hearing me? Just, just work with me on this. And I'm like, I remember the one day and it's like half past 12 at night and he's working 00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:52.000 and I look down over the balcony, the lights are on, and he's got a praise on going, doing his assignments. It should have been done a week ago. 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:58.000 And I got sick and the Lord said to me, go make him a cup of tea. 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:05.000 Jesus said, I've not come to be served, but to serve. I said, lord, that's not fair. 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:15.000 And then he says to me, no, no, you want to be served, you want the lights off your, you want the thing, just go serve. I'm not. 00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:22.000 And I remember I went down there and I made a cup of tea and I wanted to slam it down, but I like, if you're going to honor God, as you heard this morning, 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:25.000 let's just finish what we start. 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:32.000 So I make some tea and I put it down there and I said, bless you. He goes, sure. I know you really didn't want to make me this tea. 00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:35.000 I said, no, you're all right. But I am. Gave him a hug. 00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:45.000 Do you know he never did that again the whole year? You know what I got a harvest of Sunday night, sleeps 30, 60, 100 fold for what I put in on such a stupid little point. 00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:55.000 You know, chit can't tell you something as ridiculous as the point is that the Lord asks you to do. It's not ridiculous to him that he thinks it's worthy to say, 00:19:55.000 --> 00:20:00.000 won't you please do this knowing there's a 30, 60, 100 harvest to come. 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:08.000 If you just act on what he told you, you join your will to the word you've received. The same word goes out to everybody. 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:15.000 The difference is in the heart and the heart where if you've got good soil, the difference in your heart is you have an effect. 00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:25.000 And the effect you have is good. And as we use the power of choice to turn our minds to God in the day, guess what happens? Guess what happens. 00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:30.000 You suddenly have a greater contact with God throughout your day. 00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:38.000 You develop a conversational relationship with Him. Now suddenly, because I got good soil in here, I want to hear the word of the Lord. 00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:42.000 I start to live ready to hear the word of the Lord. 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:50.000 I start to engage him in common conversation. I start to find his voice. I bring the reality of God into my life. 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:58.000 And my actions are based on the revelation that he keeps giving me. I want to hope that today and tomorrow and the next day and the next Day 00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:05.000 I'm going to be doing the fruit of what I'm hearing when I'm with him. I'm busy putting in place for myself a harvest of, of righteousness. 00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:15.000 I'm busy putting in place. Jesus is telling us, if I hear and I say yes, and I just do the adjustments according to what God says, 00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:22.000 it's amazing how others start to benefit. If you're struggling in your workplace to get a promotion, just change your flipping attitude. 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:30.000 Are you okay? Don't go in looking like you suck lemons. The dentist has taken all your teeth and your personalities disappeared. 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:40.000 Be a blessing, be a joy. Be someone who's like, we can't do without this person because Jesus has been telling me to reflect him, and he doesn't look like that. 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:45.000 There's a kingdom we're being invited to live in. We can experience its reality with such constancy and power. 00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:55.000 We can know and feel the presence of God. You see, when there's a harvest, thirty, sixty, hundredfold, and I'm a farmer, I walk through my harvest, 00:21:55.000 --> 00:22:00.000 I. I walk through my fields. I live in the benefit of what's coming out of the soil. 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:10.000 In other words, when you start doing good and things become good, you feel. Are you hearing what I'm saying? You literally, and I don't want to, because the new age perverts it, 00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:15.000 but you literally create the space you walk into by your sowing. 00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:22.000 Thirty, sixty, hundred fold. There's nothing mysterious here. What you turn your attention to is the key to your life. 00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:28.000 And so I close with this. So Jesus says, take heed. Pay careful attention. 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:35.000 Remember a parable, Parabola is characterized by contrasting one thing against another. What's the lesson Jesus is telling now? 00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:38.000 Remember, he's going to go. Which we're going to start now. 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:48.000 A whole series of stories on the parables that are explaining keys for how the kingdom of God breaks into our lives and how we forcefully advance the kingdom 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:58.000 greater than John the Baptist. We advance the kingdom into the world around us because we have got. We understand the nature of the invasion of the kingdom 00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:05.000 that we forcefully advance, but at the same time, we are forcefully opposed. 00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:15.000 There is this constant struggle that goes on and you may think living in South Africa is the worst thing that ever happened to me. Can I tell you something? 00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:20.000 You are a prophetic picture of the future. Because around this throne is. 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:30.000 Is every tribe and nation and tongue. It is a rainbow plethora of people around the throne that is the true rainbow nation 00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:40.000 where you will worship and live alongside people who are very, very different to you now, if you go preach the gospel in Oz or Europe or anywhere else, 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:48.000 they all think the same, look the same. Have you ever been to the Netherlands? All the gardens, the houses, the yards, the people all look the same. 00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:55.000 You come to South Africa, nothing's the same. And someone who you thought, was this today? Is this. Are you with me? 00:23:55.000 --> 00:24:05.000 We're living in a situation with a plethora of beliefs and people and nationalities and pain and anger and hurts and love all at the same time. 00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:15.000 Can you imagine when the people of this land start to walk in the power of the kingdom of God? The testimony to the world will be, 00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:25.000 look at them in the midst of an impossible adversity, the greatest difference between rich and poor, highest crime rates, highest, highest death rates. 00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:32.000 In the midst of that, a beautiful bride emerges. You're here for a reason at this time. 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:38.000 That's why you're here. That the kingdom of God can break in. So Jesus says, take heed. 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:48.000 And here's his point. When you look at how the seeds grow or don't grow in the same environment, you learn how different people react to the word of the kingdom. 00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:55.000 Some people are just not able to let the word of God work at a deep level in their souls. 00:24:55.000 --> 00:25:05.000 But God has so sent his word out that even the humblest believer in this room who simply believes and says, yes, Lord, 00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:15.000 the keys for a 30, 60 hundredfold harvest are birthed in you in the moment that Jesus sends his word. 00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:25.000 Because the Father said, when I send my word, it does not return to me empty. All it needs is the willingness of the heart to receive it. 00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:35.000 Jesus says in Luke 8:16, no one lights a lamp and then covers it with a bowl or hides it under a bed. 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:42.000 A lamp is placed on a stand where its light can be seen by all who enter the house. I want you to see as we close. 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:50.000 This is God's initiative. God the Sower comes to sow the word of the kingdom into your heart. And he does not intend that word to be covered. 00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:58.000 He intends it to be lifted up, giving light to everyone. We are the light of the world, wherever we are. 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:08.000 And I said last week, in Luke 8:18, Jesus said, Pay attention or listen carefully or pay heed to how you hear. 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:18.000 To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them. 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:22.000 Please pay attention to how we hear. 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:32.000 How are we supposed to hear? Can I say this? We listen with true repentance. The art of listening is in true repentance. 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:38.000 And to repent means to turn from one direction to another. 00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:48.000 It's a willingness to come to God and his word every day of your life and say, lord, I'm willing to humbly accept your word, 00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:55.000 which will require a turning or a changing in me, which is the word for true repentance. 00:26:55.000 --> 00:27:02.000 I want to be in the position where you can talk to me. Friends, please hear me. 00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:10.000 Do you know that there is the slight possibility that. That in some things you may be wrong? 00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:15.000 The way some of you looking at me. Yeah, I know people who are wrong. 00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:25.000 Do you know there's the slight possibility you aren't always right? Have you ever thought about it? Even if you've walked with the Lord a long time, 00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:32.000 if others have been wrong, we can be wrong. That's why there is a safety in the voices of trusted people around you. 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:38.000 And sometimes our obsession or rebellion or stubbornness is driving us in the wrong direction. 00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:48.000 And what Jesus is trying to tell us is we must listen to the word of God about the kingdom and ask ourselves this question. 00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:58.000 Where is my mind and where is my heart in terms of what I've just heard? I'll ask you this. When was the last time you heard a word of the Lord 00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:08.000 that shifted the way you behave, that cause you to repent in your activity or thought pattern towards a situation, a person or a circumstance when you can? 00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:15.000 And he's telling us that with the soils, it's possible to miss it. 00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:25.000 And here's the thing, the parable of the sower, it applies to all of us, all the time. But if we don't listen with care, what we've heard may be lost. 00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:28.000 So I want to close with this. 00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:38.000 What I think Jesus is trying to say is that the word of God comes to us as we learn to develop a hearing kind of life. 00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:48.000 A life lived in the spirit, a mind attuned to God, where the Word of God comes and fills our lives if we want it. But you must want it. 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:58.000 Have you noticed that God doesn't flirt? God doesn't tease. He is a gentle whisper. He doesn't compete, but to the one who seeks. 00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:05.000 He finds the one who asks, receives the one who knocks the doors. You see the language? 00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:15.000 The Lord is saying, I just want you to develop a listening kind of life so the Word of God can fill you. Here's the problem. 00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:25.000 If you don't want it, then God allows you to live the with me life, do everything with me and all that trauma that follows. 00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:35.000 But if you follow him he gives you a with God life where in your everyday, you're open and attentive to the voice of the Lord. 00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:42.000 You're at work like everybody else, but your spirit is attentive to the word of the Lord. 00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:48.000 You're in this world, you're not living of it. You're open to the small nuances of the Holy Spirit. 00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:50.000 A life of. 00:29:50.000 --> 00:30:00.000 A life of growth and abundance. And I want to say this, as we close, most of what God will say to us will shine a light onto the circumstances we're about to walk into. 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:05.000 Your word is a light to my path. 00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:15.000 The words God speaks, He illuminates that little bit ahead, just that little bit ahead, and shows us that's why his mercy is on you every morning. 00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:22.000 Rarely does God tell you the end. He gives you enough for each day and he wants us to listen with care. 00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:32.000 And when you're attuned and you hear God's voice, your life begins to be marked with friendship with God and confidence towards him, 00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:40.000 where he becomes the bread you eat, the air you breathe, confidence with him. Lord, I want to be that kind of person, 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:48.000 that my life is marked by friendship with you and confidence in you. A with God kind of life. 00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:58.000 The verse for this is John 17,3 and this is the way to have eternal life, to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. 00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:08.000 Friends, he's offering us a life of abiding in Jesus where we bear fruit, we shine before men, our works give glory to our heavenly father. 00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:15.000 Matthew 5:16. Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your Heavenly Father. 00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:20.000 Stand with me. Thank you so much for being a part of our meeting today. 00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:30.000 Can I just ask two things? The first is if today the message has in any way been useful to you, would you mind just maybe liking it 00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:38.000 or putting perhaps a statement down or a comment down that we can know how the ministry has helped you? 00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:45.000 Maybe a thumbs up, maybe you can subscribe to the channel, do whatever, just so we can know what impact this message may be having on you. 00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:55.000 And secondly, you may be someone who's saying, greg, I hear you. And this hope that Jesus has for us can come into my heart and it can change me. 00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:02.000 But the reality is that I don't even know if I know Jesus. I want to say two things to you right away. The first is he's near you right now. 00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:10.000 The Bible says if you believe in your heart that he is the Lord, and if you confess him with your mouth, you will be saved. 00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:20.000 Which means you just need to where you are, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ even now and just say, lord, here I am. I recognize who you are. 00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:25.000 I confess my sin to you. I acknowledge you as Jesus Christ, the Lord of all, the Son of the living God. 00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:30.000 And I want to follow you. I want to become a disciple of yours. I want to give my life to you, Lord. 00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:35.000 And you can pray that prayer right now between you and the Lord. 00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:42.000 Secondly, you can get hold of us, you can see the telephone number. You can get hold of us and say, hey, I've given my life to the Lord. 00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:48.000 Can you help me from here on out? And we could either send you some material, we can put you in touch with a really good church near you. 00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:55.000 If you live in our area, you can come to us, you can follow us on YouTube. But it is good to get connected into the family of God, 00:32:55.000 --> 00:33:02.000 to get connected into a local church that your life changes being surrounded with the family of God. 00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:05.000 Please stay in touch. God bless you.