we're in Matthew 13 this morning.
As we make our way very slowly
through the gospel of Matthew.
We spent three weeks in chapter 12.
There was a lot there.
And we're going to spend
three weeks or so in
Matthew chapter 13, because there's a lot here.
Matthew 13 is,
is full of seven different parables.
Seven there are seven parables of Matthew 13,
and I want to help you understand what a parable is.
And what we're going to see in this first
parable is going to give us the opportunity for two things.
First, in verses one through 23, this is the first parable in Matthew 13,
we're going to have the opportunity
to gain the tools to assess our own hearts.
That's the first thing we're going to gain.
Do you understand that?
Like we're going to be able to assess our own heart.
But the second thing is we're going to understand now
what's happening right
now in the unseen reality.
In response to the Scripture.
Right now, there's something going on
in your heart and in my heart.
And we're going to see
there's there's four reactions.
There's four responses
to God's Word.
And every one of us is experiencing one of these four.
And we're going to see that
in Matthew 13 verses one through 23.
That's helpful.
It tells me what's going on in me.
It helps me diagnose and assess my own heart.
And it also enables me to know how to pray for those I love,
because the same thing is going in their hearts.
And so Jesus tells these seven parables
and what a parable is, we have to understand what it is a parable.
Is it a parable means literally to throw beside something.
It means to toss something beside something.
And so a parable is a story set in real life experience.
That's
thrown beside a truth that's hard to understand,
to give it better understanding.
That's what a parable is.
So when Jesus needs to tell some hard
truth, that's kind of difficult to understand.
He will take a story.
He'll he'll tell a story from real life and throw it next to that.
And by doing that, that's supposed
to help the truth to be better understood.
Do you follow? That's what a parable is.
And so in Matthew 13 is going to tell seven of them.
Just by way of introduction
in in Matthew 13, they're seven parables.
Parables two, three, four, five, six all begin
with the kingdom of heaven is like this.
First one we'll look at today.
Jesus doesn't say that.
So the the following six though he always says, the kingdom of heaven is like.
And so what he's doing is explaining to us
this difficult thing to understand about the kingdom of heaven.
And so he throws parables, stories next to it to help us easier understand it.
That's the point of this
in Matthew.
Jesus uses the words
as Matthew records that the kingdom of heaven.
Of the four Gospels, only three of them
have parables Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
There's no parables of Jesus and the Gospel of John.
In Matthew,
Matthew records Jesus words as the kingdom of heaven.
In Mark and Luke, those two authors recorded as the kingdom of God.
There's not a lot of difference.
There's some.
Some reasons why they did that given like their perspective
and what they're coming from and who they're writing to.
But basically it's the same thing.
And what it means is the rule and reign of God
in this world and over our lives.
So the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, is the rule and reign of God.
And so
there's a pretty profound, deep, huge topic.
So Jesus is going to throw these stories next to it to help us understand it.
Do you follow?
Yes. That's what the parables are.
And that's why Jesus uses them.
This first parable
that we'll look at today, verses one through 23,
is about the universal reality for all people
when it comes to Scripture, when it comes to truth, when it comes
to the gospel, when it comes to to Christ, this is universally true for all people.
And there's only four responses
that every person
fits in.
That's this first parable and then the next three.
So parables two, three and four
have to do with the fact
that there's in the kingdom of God
or the church, there's righteous and evil mixed together.
Okay.
Yeah.
Have you ever thought, why is that?
Some people in the church.
Why is it so bad? Anybody?
Why are there such horrible people who call themselves Christians?
Anybody?
Yeah.
Do you ever look in the mirror that's getting.
And so. No.
So so so Jesus is saying, listen, my kingdom
and the church is going to be full
of righteous people and evil people, and some of them,
you're not really going to be able to tell the difference much at all.
And he said, just leave them alone.
Let me worry about them.
That's parables two, three, four.
Then parables five, six, seven.
Are these parables that Jesus throws next to a truth, and the truth is this
that God saw something in,
evil, nasty world that was so valuable
that he gave his son to redeem it and buy it.
That's what parables five, six, seven are about.
So overall kingdom rule and reign of God.
And he's going to throw these parables next to these two truths
to help us understand it better.
So that's where we're headed.
That's what this is about.
And so what I want to do is
I want to read these first nine verses,
and then we're just going to take it in chunks and we're going to talk about them.
And, and some of this will be familiar to you.
Some of it won't be, but let's just follow along here.
First nine verses.
Chapter 13, verse one.
That same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea,
and great crowds gathered around him,
so that he got into a boat and sat down.
And the whole crowd stood on the beach, and he told them many things in parables.
Seen a sower went out to sow.
And as he showed, some seed fell on the path,
and the birds came and devoured them.
Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil,
and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil.
But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root,
they withered away.
Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.
Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain some 100 fold, some 60, some 30.
Who has ears to hear? Let them hear.
So Jesus is
prior.
He's just talking to his his, his closest disciples.
Now all these crowds come to hear him,
and he sitting down and all these crowds show up is like,
there's no way they're all going to hear me.
So he gets in the boat, pushes out from the shore a little bit. Why?
Because there's an acoustic element to water around him.
So it helps him, helps it helps the volume so everybody can hear.
And the Bible says here he sits down in the boat
and everybody stands on the seashore.
Just a just a little caveat for you has nothing to do with the message.
But I just want to let you know that this position of Jesus sitting
while he teaches is the position of a rabbi.
In the first century Jerusalem, they sat while they taught, they would stand
when they would preach and proclaim, but they would sit when they would teach.
And so this is just the reason why I sit.
It's just my like, tip of the hat
to the first century rabbis and how it was done.
When I preach and proclaim, it's a lot of what Easter was, I was standing.
And so my time to teach this church is, you know, I'm we're going to teach.
I'm going to teach. Okay.
So this this is the context that the people are in with Jesus in this boat.
Just pushed out from shore a little bit to better understand the parables.
There's this there's this role of interpretation.
I want to teach you.
And it's called the exegetical constancy.
Exegetical constancy.
Everybody say exegetical exegetical constancy.
This is really important to understand.
When we look at things like the parables, what it means is this.
What something means over and over
and over never changes, no matter how it used.
Like,
for instance, the birds.
Birds here in this parable, the birds came and took the soil.
Birds throughout Scripture are in
this instance are always evil.
Bad bird, bad bird, bad bird.
It is all of a sudden turn to a good bird.
Do you understand?
And so when you just look at the idea
of birds in scripture, typically these birds, these ravens.
Were,
it's always evil all throughout Scripture.
It never changes.
Doves are always good.
They're always a sign of the peace of God in the Holy Spirit.
You understand?
A dove is never used in a bad content,
evil context in Scripture, exegetical constancy.
Okay, so
usually when birds are used, it's always evil.
Same thing with seed.
When the seed is used, this is the word of God.
It's always the Word of God.
Whenever the farmers planting seed, it's always the Word of God.
It never means anything other than that exegetical constancy.
The world or the field.
Okay, the field is always the world, or humanity always.
And that's really important to understand as we go through these parables,
because Jesus is going to throw out these stories next to real life.
They're real life experience.
Unless we understand what some of these things always mean,
and we're going to get confused on the point of it.
And I don't want you to be confused.
So this idea of exegetical constancy is really important when it comes to
interpreting Scripture.
And so
that that's the like he tells the parable of the sower.
Let me say this.
It's important to understand,
the idea of sowing
now, the idea of sowing in Scripture as a farm.
From farmer's perspective, that's the idea of planting seeds.
And so Jesus tells this parable
to help people understand what the kingdom of God is like.
And he says, A sower goes out and throws out seed.
Now, they didn't
they didn't do farming in their day like we do in our day, in our day.
But what we do would prepare the soil.
We would make sure it's full of nutrients.
We would plow it all. We'd make sure the seeds are planted.
We covering water? Not.
That's not how it worked back then.
Back then when a sower, a farmer, went out to plant seed,
he had a big seed bag and he had really good seed
and he would just throw the seed out on the ground, just throw it everywhere.
Just everywhere.
And it would fall on all four different types of soil.
And then after they threw the seed out, then
they would go in till and mix the seed into the soil.
And so that's how it was.
So this farmer's not being negligent with his resources, not being wasteful.
That's just how they did it.
And as a result, that good seed fell on a lot of different soils.
Do you follow okay.
So that that's his teaching and that's it.
He's done teaching.
And then the disciples come to him,
verse ten.
The disciples came to him, said, why do you speak to them in parables?
He's like, okay, we
so so here's, here's the big idea.
I don't want you to miss this.
God isn't the variable in this parable.
My heart is.
The seed is not the variable.
The seed is constant.
The seed is good.
What is what? What?
The variable of the produce is not to come from the seed.
It comes from the soil.
Do you understand?
Comes from my heart.
And so in essence, the disciples were like, look,
if that's the point, why don't you just say it like that?
Now? My imagination,
I imagine these disciples, they're sitting with you.
They're hearing them teach. All these people are around.
They don't want to look like they don't get it.
And so like, oh yeah. Yeah. No.
Right on. Yeah. Preach that. Yeah, yeah.
We've been with them a long time. We get it. Yeah.
And then when nobody's around.
Hey, let me ask you this.
What are you talking about? Right. Like.
And so they come and they're like, why do you why do you speak in pairs?
Now look at what he says,
verse 11.
And then he answered them to you.
It has been given to know
the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it's not been given.
For to the one who has more will be given.
And he who has, and he will have an abundance.
But from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because seen
they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
Pay attention to that word, understand.
We're going to come back to it,
and really get some understanding.
But that was important
indeed.
In their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says,
Now Isaiah, he had some tough words for people.
And so Jesus is drawing on all this Old Testament history, this Old Testament
prophet Isaiah. He said, let me tell you
what Isaiah was talking about,
because it's coming to fruition right now in your midst.
And look at what I say. This is brutal.
You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see,
but never perceive.
For this people's heart has grown dull,
and with their eyes they can barely, or with their ears they can barely hear.
And their eyes they have closed,
lest they should see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn.
And I would heal them well.
But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears for they hear.
For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see
and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it.
So just as listen, this is why I'm talking in parables,
because they are not going to understand it.
Now that sounds really harsh,
but given what he's just said in Matthew 12, verses
41 and 42, and what he said was this if you don't remember from last week,
he said, those
who know and understand and refuse to repent
come under more severe judgment than those who don't understand and don't repent.
Both will be judged, but the one who has understanding
and refuses to repent, more severe judgment.
So what Jesus is saying is, listen, they don't get it.
And rather than give them more light for them to reject
and have more severe judgment.
I'm going to say it in a way where they're not responsible.
That's pretty merciful in it,
Yeah. You're not being mean.
And so he says,
this is why he said some of them they hear, but they don't hear.
They see, but they don't see.
Nor do they understand
that word understand is really important.
And one of the things that that word understand
means.
Is they they don't put it together
like they've heard it all,
but they're not putting it together.
They're not they're not investing the energy
and the effort to not just hear it and not just see it,
but to take the time and the energy to put it together.
And if they refuse to put it together, that's on them.
But I'm not going to give them more light to continue to ignore.
And reject.
Do you understand?
It's about putting it together.
He just got done saying, you don't need more proof.
I've given you enough proof.
And the ultimate proof is going to be the resurrection.
You don't need more proof.
You've heard it.
You've seen it.
You're going to take the time to put it together. Now
that's what he's saying.
And so the question.
I are you putting this together?
What's going to be your response?
One of the greatest desires of my life.
Is by
the Holy Spirit's power to be able to take this
and understand it and be able to cast it
in a way that makes sense.
So you'll understand it.
You get it.
It's greatest desire of my hearts, my prayer.
Every day.
Whether you choose to take it
and to put your own work in it, to understand it
and ask God through His Spirit to give you understanding
that's on you.
The role of the Holy Spirit of God
is to sanctify God's people.
What sanctify means is to make us holy, to make us obedient, to make us righteous.
That's the role of the Holy Spirit.
And the Bible says that the Holy Spirit does that
through the Word of God.
We don't become more righteous
or holy or obedient by showing up to church.
We do it by the Word of God.
That's why the church is so.
It's so important for the church to proclaim and teach the Word of God,
because through this, the Holy Spirit uses this that's been planted
in our soil.
To sanctify us.
One of the greatest prayers
you can pray after coming to Jesus.
Is father, by the power of your spirit.
Help me understand this word
and sanctify me through it.
Give me the desire to be obedient and holy and righteous.
Help me put it together.
And Jesus uses these words.
He says this people,
their heart is going door.
That means it's grown fat and calloused.
It's just gone.
It's an unexercised their hearts are unexercised
as far as my word is concerned.
He says they're they're ears.
They can barely hear.
In other words, they're just hard of hearing.
They've heard it all.
They just refuse to hear it all.
They're hard of hearing. Do you get this?
As we say,
he said, their eyes.
They've closed.
They've chosen to to turn a blind eye to the truth
of what I've given them.
So I teach them parables.
All they have to do is turn.
That's what he says.
And look at this.
In verse 15.
All they do is turn.
And I would hear them. That word turn.
I mean, all they got to do is turn around.
Turn your life around.
Repent.
If you just simply return and turn your life around,
he says, I will heal you.
I don't know how you can be more clear.
But it doesn't happen.
Apart from the seed of the Word of God being implanted and the Holy Spirit
given us his power to understand it,
to lead us to repentance, a desire
for holiness and sanctification and righteousness.
Can you imagine what's at stake right now?
In your life?
Verse 18.
Here.
Then the parable of the sower says, okay, let me explain to you.
Let me let me just help you understand this one.
This is this is this is crazy.
Jesus usually doesn't explain what the parables mean in these seven
chapter 13, he's going to explain what the first two are.
He's going to he's going to say, okay, here's the interpretation.
Here's what I'm talking about.
The rest of them, it's like, okay, you got to you gotta work this one out.
Ask the Holy Spirit to give you understanding,
because you're not going to stand apart from the Holy Spirit.
And that's all his job is to help you understand.
So you'll be sanctified.
But, but, but they'll help you get started.
I'll explain it to you.
So? So this is what he does.
He explains it when anyone hears verse 19,
when anyone hears, the word of the kingdom, it does not understand.
Remember that word understand doesn't put it together.
The evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.
This is, This is what was sown along
the path.
The birds come and take it away.
The evil one.
Right.
And so what he's saying here
is those.
That's good.
See, there's nothing wrong with the seed,
but those who have received that seed
and don't put it together.
The evil one comes
and takes it away.
When?
When he uses that word, understand it literally to help you
kind of get what he's saying.
It's like two combatants coming together.
What he's saying is this it's good seed
that's been planted in, in, in, in you.
But right now your life is in combat
with the kingdom of God.
Your life is in combat
with the rule and reign of God over your life.
And as long as you're combatants with each other, you'll never put this.
So the idea of putting it together is saying it's in.
Quit combating with the rule and reign of God and bring those together.
Do you understand?
And if that doesn't happen,
the devil just comes in.
You want to know why?
Sometimes people come to church and the the seed.
Good.
They just walk out like.
Like my. I'm. Well, whatever.
Sunday.
Gotta get on with the rest of life.
Because they haven't surrendered yet
to the rule and reign of God in their world.
And the moment is planted.
Boom! God.
That's one of the realities
of what happens when we
hear Scripture.
Listen, if you don't open up your ear,
if you don't open your heart
to the work of the Holy Spirit
that's speaking to you right now.
If you don't right now say, father,
give me understanding to your word.
I don't get it, but I would need the power of you.
You, your spirit, to give me.
Help me understand this.
If. If that's
not your prayer and your desire, what's being shown in you
right now is being taken away from you right now by the evil one.
Do you have understanding?
You're putting this together.
So that's the first of the second one.
Is this.
As for what was shown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word
and immediately receives it with with joy.
Yet he has no root in himself.
He endures for a while.
And when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately
he falls away.
He said the second group is like its good seed,
and it's it's their.
And initially,
he hears it and immediately receives it with terms like, oh, this is,
this is good stuff.
Like this.
Jesus saying, I like this, this is bad, I get this, that's good.
You know, and they're excited about they're probably young, you know,
because young people are so excited like, oh, I love Jesus.
And he's my savior.
And I go to church and there's there's excitement.
Enjoy there. Right.
Like they they they prayed the prayer and they're like, oh, this is fantastic.
And it's great for a little bit.
But it's rocky underneath initially.
The heart's soft, but it's a hard heart.
And this was very typical of the of the, of the ground
in Israel had a top layer that was fantastic.
But under that there was a lot.
It's I don't know if you knew this, but Israel's built on this huge rock shelf.
And so,
and so initially there's this, this good,
but most of it's rocky underneath
and it just can't penetrate the.
And that's what some hearts are like.
Like initially it's soft like, oh I love the Lord.
And then.
And then their true heart revealed.
And it happens like this.
Yet it has no root.
And they endure for a while
that were for a while.
It means literally for a season.
There's a season.
And some of you are you remember back in that season
when you first fell in love with Jesus, you remember back in that season
near a young youth group all the time,
when you first come to face or read your Bible
all the time, you remember that season.
You're like, this is great news.
How can I, how can I help?
How can I serve the church?
You remember that season
and it's great for a season.
But what happens is another season comes.
And when tribulation or persecution,
another season comes.
You know, the season when I used to believe.
I used to trust.
I used to be a person of faith.
I used to follow.
But then the season of tribulation comes.
The season of trouble.
The season in your life of anguish, the season
in your life of affliction.
Something bad happens.
Some season that you didn't see coming.
Some season that you convince yourself it's not supposed to be this way.
If I'm following Jesus.
It's the season that hits the mess.
You go, well, if God is loving, then why?
If God is good, then why?
If God is sovereign, then how could he allow?
And persecution on account of the word?
And let me tell you,
let me give a little understanding to that persecution on account of the word.
It looks like this.
Well, the Bible says God is good and the Bible says God is love.
And the Bible says God is sovereign.
And the Bible says,
I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for a future and a hope
not for destruction.
I know what the Bible says, but my experience says
this and my experience says this, and my experience says this.
And because of the word and my experience, one of them isn't true.
To understand.
And most people,
rather than the word, says
because of persecution, because of the word.
Those things just don't jive.
I follow a.
To fall away
means more literally to stumble, or an arm
to stumble away from or, in our words, to deconstruct.
I know what the Bible says.
God loves me.
God is good.
He's sovereign.
His providence continues to work all things together for good.
But my experience is something other than that.
My experience is something other than that.
My experience is something other than that, at least how I feel about it.
And so I have to deconstruct what I know of the Word of God
and come up with something different.
I have fallen and stumbled away.
There's nothing wrong with the seed.
Do you follow?
Do you understand?
Are you putting this together?
This is.
These are the four things that happen.
That's one and two.
And as a result, they fall away.
They stumble, they're deconstructed.
Verse 22.
After it was sown among the thorns.
This is the one who hears the word.
But the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches
choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
So the third one,
good seed shown on the soil.
But it's among thorns.
They hear the word,
but there's thorns along with it.
And Jesus describes the thorns
as the cares of the world,
the cares of the world.
What he's talking about here is anxiety about life
and the cares about what the world values
the words there.
But because I care more about the world's
values than the kingdom values rule and reign of God.
What is sown gets choked.
Do you understand?
What's shown is good,
but it's among thorns.
And those thorns.
Anxiety about life and my future.
Or because now, rather than staying true to the values of the rule
and reign of the Kingdom of God, I care more about the values of this world.
What's been sown starts to be get choked.
Now watch.
Because of the cares of the world
and the deceitfulness of riches.
The deceitfulness
of wealth and possessions and materialism.
Here's what he's saying.
He's saying that
this good seed has been sown
and it's starting to take root.
But we get.
Deceived
by what we think wealth will bring us.
Wealth will produce for us.
Wealth will protect us from when we get deceived as to.
The satisfaction
that materialism will provide us.
And it chokes what God was doing.
Now watch this.
The deceitfulness.
Don't be fooled by this.
Some are so delusional about wealth,
about what they think wealth brings
or what they think wealth protects them from, or what
they think wealth will produce in them joy and happiness.
If I just had a little bit more,
Reason
why is credit card debt is rampant in our country
is because people have been delusion about wealth.
They're delusional.
Now watch this.
The very things that we pray for and work for and plan for
are the very things that can destroy our soul.
Do you see this?
The very things.
Most people spend their lives
working to gain and to get,
so they can get to the end of
their life and be comfortable and at ease.
And all the wealth, the deceitfulness and the disillusion of wealth is choking
what God has planted in them.
The very things we pray for,
the very things we work for, the very things
we set aside, retirement for others very things
we think we're experiencing God's favor and blessing.
And we may will be, but they're the very things that left
unchecked choke what God could be doing and producing
in our lives.
Well, people got nothing.
I'm telling you, they are here.
And the moment prosperity comes,
I forgot time
and get really stingy.
And most of us work
and pray for this stuff when they look at God's favor on me.
And all the while, all we're doing
is amassing and perpetuating that the very things that choke
what it is he would be doing.
Do you ever see this?
And that word choke.
Choke it out.
It means to suffocate it.
It you just it just suffocate it.
Slowly, slowly, slowly. Here's the truth.
We don't usually lose our faith overnight.
We slowly suffocate it.
And some people have amassed so much around their lives,
they have slowly suffocated the rule and reign of God
over their stuff.
So you most don't usually walk away from God immediately.
Suddenly they just get distracted from him.
And they use his blessings as excuses to ignore
his rule and his reign.
And just as they become unfruitful, they don't produce what they should
produce for the Kingdom of God based on what God has implanted in their lives.
They just don't.
You know, I was thinking about these these especially these three parables
this week, and I thought, you know, probably nobody in these three parables,
none of these three realized how far from God they were,
especially the ones who were the blessed ones,
probably had no concept of how far from God in the heart of the father they were,
because, after all, they're blessed right?
If I'm blessed, I got to be close to God.
His favor has got to be on me.
They probably have no idea how far from God they were.
They probably thought, well, I look just like everybody else at church.
It's all good.
I'm not too far off.
Oh, my friends,
without careful consideration.
And investigation of your own life,
we will always be ignorant how fruitful we are or not.
If the Word of God that's
been sown in us is truly effective.
With every ounce of my being, I want to encourage you.
Pray,
pray, pray, pray
that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, would give
you understanding to His Word
that would lead you to repentance
and allegiance
to the Kingdom of God above all else.
Pray that the Holy Spirit
enlightens your heart to understand his words, that by His Word
you will be sanctified, holy, and righteous.
The way the Holy Spirit works on us
to sanctifies, to make us into the image of Christ is through His Word.
And also we have the power of the spirit to help us understand, to put it together,
it'll be stolen away or choked out.
And then Jesus said
in verse 23.
As for what was sown in good soil,
this is the one who hears the word and understands it.
Remember and understand,
puts it together. Now.
He indeed bears fruit and yields in one case
100 fold, and another 60, and another 30.
The normal production of the seed was 8 to 1.
With Jesus Kingdom math
30 to 1, 61 101.
And so let me just leave.
Let me leave us with a few questions.
Which soil of those four
currently represents your heart?
Without intentional
investigation of our hearts, we will be
ignorant.
As to what's going on right now.
And so, friends, please
ask yourselves what soil currently represents
your heart.
Second question is this
am I producing 30 to 1, 61 or
101 of the kingdom produce from what God has implanted in me?
And apparently, according to God's math,
if the Holy Spirit isn't through us
producing 30, 60 to 100 fold.
We must be part of the first three soils.
Third question what are you doing to fertilize
good soil so that you produce 30 times, six times a hundred times what?
What's.
You have authority
over the soil of your heart.
What are you doing to fertilize that?
The sanctification, our sanctification
that even the desire to live a holy life, a righteous life and obedient life
comes from the Holy Spirit through the Word of God.
It doesn't happen.
Apart from this, the seed that's sown,
I read it.
I am part of Bible studies about it.
I listen to music about it.
I don't care what your favorite music is,
if it isn't in the Word of God music, it's going to choke something out.
If you follow.
So. Which of the four soils.
Won't you pray with me?
Father, your word is alive and active
and it is piercing.
And it's especially piercing for those of us
who desire to understand.
And for those in this place.
For those who hear my voice, who desire to understand, I pray.
By the power of your spirit, you will grant understanding
that leads to repentance
and in repentance, that you would give all that
your grace would allow.
As they pledge their allegiance to you
and your Kingdom rule.
Guys, I'm not talking about just stay in this moment of prayer for me.
Just listen to me.
I'm not talking about inviting Jesus into your life to be your guest.
He does not want to be the guest of your heart.
He wants to violently take it
over as a hostile takeover.
It's not a pleasant, kind invitation.
It is a hostile takeover where he wants to destroy everything
of this world.
And create an entirely new life.
And I charge you in the name of Jesus.
Say, father, I admit I'm a sinner.
I've lived life on my own terms.
I believe that Jesus died on the cross
so I could have a way to be made right with you.
Not based on what I do,
but based on what he's done.
I believe he was raised from the grave
and is alive today.
Saved me by that faith.
And here's the hostile takeover part.
You got to get to this part.
I commit to turn from my sin.
My habits,
my addictions.
The stuff I harbor in my heart,
I commit to turn from all of it.
And I dedicate my life.
And I dedicate my allegiance to you and you alone.
Tell him. See.
Empower me to love you with my whole heart and soul and mind and strength,
without delay and without hesitation.
Fill me with your power
and the power of your spirit
to live a holy life.
Father, I thank you
that you have loved us with an everlasting love.
That nothing we could do or not do would separate us from that love.
But I pray
by the power of the Holy Spirit, that you would help us understand that love
and give ourselves fully to you.
Protect us from the evil one, from still, in a word way,
protect us from ourselves,
from letting it get choked out.
Give us, by the power of your spirit.
The power and the strength
sanctify us to be obedient
and holy and righteous.
The image of your son in this world.
In your name I pray Jesus.
Amen.
Church, I love you.
I'm proud of you.
I said we were going through Matthew earlier.
I said, Jesus just keeps putting the throttle down right?
Like he doesn't let up and it's good.
And so we're going to keep pressing through this.
So here's my ask.
Read Matthew 13 the whole chapter over and over and over this week.
Some of these parables you'll get like, yeah, I got it.
Others want me to like what I.
But let it live inside you.
Let it bubble up.
It's by the Word of God that the Holy Spirit's going to sanctify you.
And we'll talk about it next week.
You got it. This thing.