4 And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it.6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it.8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
The Purpose of the Parables
9 And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, 10 he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
A Lamp Under a Jar
16 “No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light.17 For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.18 Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.”
4 And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it.6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it.8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
The Purpose of the Parables
9 And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, 10 he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
A Lamp Under a Jar
16 “No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light.17 For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.18 Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.”
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:
If you would open your Bibles to Luke chapter 8. Luke chapter 8, as we continue our study through the gospel of Luke. We'll begin reading in verse 4. And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, a sower went out to sow his seed and as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock and as it grew up it withered away because it had no moisture.
Jeffrey Heine:
And some fell among thorns. And the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil, and grew and yielded a hundredfold. And as he said these things, he called out, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And when the disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables.
Jeffrey Heine:
So that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. Now the parable is this, the seed is the Word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard, then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root.
Jeffrey Heine:
They believe for a while and in time of testing fall away. And as for what fell among the thorns, there are those who hear but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. As for that and the good soil, they are those who hearing the word hold it fast and honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a jar and puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand so that those who enter may see the light the light. For nothing is hidden that will be made not be made manifest, Nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.
Jeffrey Heine:
Take care then how you hear. For to one who has, more will be given. And from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away. Pray with me. God ask that you would give us ears to hear.
Jeffrey Heine:
Through the power of your spirit, do that. Allow us to understand what you're trying to teach us through your word. I pray that you would give me clarity of mind and thought and word. But even more than that, lord, that you would open up our ears to hear your truth. Open up our hearts to absorb it.
Jeffrey Heine:
I pray that my words would fall to the ground and not be remembered anymore, but lord let your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. We've seen how the Jews in this day, they were expecting the Kingdom of God to come by force, by a political movement, That a Messiah would come and he would just set everything right through force, he'd be made king, and it would be some kind of sudden or a dramatic act. That's what they were expecting.
Jeffrey Heine:
And yet Jesus here, he's telling how the kingdom of God is going to advance, and he said it's gonna advance just like a seed being spread. The kingdom of God is like a little seed. Our experiencing the kingdom of God doesn't have to be anything dramatic. It doesn't have to be anything huge. It begins as a little teeny seed, a little word that's planted and is allowed to grow.
Jeffrey Heine:
And under the the right conditions, the seed is gonna grow into something that is gonna bear a whole lot of fruit, but it starts small. This is the parable that Jesus told us. Probably the most famous parable in the Bible. It's called the parable of the sower. That's what it's labeled as in my Bible.
Jeffrey Heine:
It'd probably be more appropriately named the parable of the soils because there's a lot more to do about soils than it does about seed. It should be the parable of the the soils, the parable about listening. And it's a very important story for us to understand, especially here in the south where everybody is a Christian. It's hard to meet somebody who's not a Christian, who hasn't walked the aisle, or hasn't said the prayer at some point in their life. Christianity in the south is so mixed with the culture that it's really hard to distinguish between the 2.
Jeffrey Heine:
What we do because it we're Christian, or what we do because it's cultural. And so how do you know if you don't have a how do you know if you have a genuine Christianity or just a cultural one? How do you know your Christianity is not a counterfeit? And there's a lot of warnings in the Bible about counterfeit Christianity. Paul tells us that we need to examine our faith.
Jeffrey Heine:
Says, test yourselves. Examine yourselves. See if you're of the faith. In Matthew 7, Jesus, he tells about people who will who many, it says on that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Cast out demons in your name?
Jeffrey Heine:
Do mighty works in your name? And then Jesus will declare to them, depart from me, I never knew you. This is an astonishing statement. We typically think of, that's the Jesus is addressing for the term CEOs, you know, the Christian and Easter only kind of Christians. You know, those who just barely ever come to the pews, and that's who he's addressing.
Jeffrey Heine:
But he's not. He's addressing the people who they've done mighty works in the name of Jesus. They believe they are Christians. They're calling them Lord, Lord, and he says, you are not true believers. So that should stand as a warning to all of us here in this room.
Jeffrey Heine:
How do we know if we are not one of these people? How do we know if we are or we aren't one of these people? With a counterfeit Christianity. Jesus tells us that it is through our response to the word of God. It's by the way we respond to the Word of God.
Jeffrey Heine:
The way we listen can tell if we really have faith. And this is why preaching at Redeemer community here, why has such prominence in our place of worship? Because by preaching, and by preach I mean expounding on the word of God, not not just speaking, not just you know, telling you good ideas or how to be good moral people, but actually expounding on a text that's preaching. Why? It is so central because we believe this is how Jesus works His kingdom and people.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's through the preaching of the word that fruit will begin to bear in your life. This is even why we open up every service with the reading of the word of God. I I like to think of it, John Piper used to say, that's the appetizer. The the the word being read at the very beginning of a service is the appetizer to wet your appetite for when you really get to dig into the word later. Now this past week for me, is just, gosh, one of those weeks.
Jeffrey Heine:
You know, we all have those kind of weeks. This is one of those weeks. I've had to travel a whole lot. I've had to make a lot of decisions. I've had to deal with grief.
Jeffrey Heine:
Yesterday was, I preached at my grandmother's funeral. And I knew a lot of this was gonna be going on early in the week, and so I I was contacting the elders just to let them know, gosh, it's gonna be a week. I I don't know if I can preach this week. I don't know what we could do this week and and so we're communicating, and it was really encouraging for me to hear from the elders to say, okay, well, you're gonna preach. Whether it's 5 minutes, whether it's 10 minutes, because expounding on the word of God is essential.
Jeffrey Heine:
Absolutely essential for us to have any kind of worship experience. They saw it as absolutely necessary, and that was really encouraging for me to hear that. I was like, yes, you got it. That's right. It's necessary if God's gonna work any change in us.
Jeffrey Heine:
And then as I began to dig into this text, in the in the time I had, I saw, well that's what this text is talking about. How it's absolutely necessary for us to hear the word of God. As I was studying this passage, I found it somewhat sobering for me as a preacher. Because this tells me that if you faithfully preach the word of God, there's not gonna be that much success, as we would think of success. If if I faithfully preach the word of God, then I can expect that there's gonna be some who never even hear the word of God.
Jeffrey Heine:
There's gonna be some who are present in the service, and maybe afterwards they'll come up to me and say that was a good word. I really enjoyed that, and they will never ever think of that word again after they walk through those out these doors. It's a reality. That's what happens. This does not mean that the word of God was ineffective.
Jeffrey Heine:
This passage actually tells us something very unique about preaching, and I didn't know if I would even mention this. Look at verse 9. It says, and when his disciples asked him what the parable meant, he said, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they're in parables so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. And this is a really hard saying that I was tempted to skip over, but that'd be wrong. Some of my preaching, we usually think of parables, they're like an illustration that bring to light things, You know, make us understand things.
Jeffrey Heine:
Jesus says, actually, I preach in parables so people will be confused. It has a hardening effect on people's hearts. If you have a hard heart, if you have hard soil, you're not gonna get the parable. And it's the same with preaching. You could go and you can preach and you could declare the word of God, but if your heart is hardened, you're not gonna get it.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so preaching though, it actually has a hardening effect. I hate to say this, but it actually prepares you for judgment. If you do not listen. So that one day, you know, I've known people who've gone to church for 40 years, faithfully, almost every single Sunday who are not Christians. That's, you know, we'll say they went 50 times a church every year.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's over 2,000 times of hearing the word of the gospel and their hearts are hardened. What that has produced is when they stand before God, they are without excuse. Without excuse. Preaching can have a hardening effect. It can actually make people hear it, and it can make them more stiff and hardened towards belief.
Jeffrey Heine:
And we see that played out here. The seed reveals what kind of soil you have. It doesn't make, it doesn't transform the soil, it reveals what soil God has prepared there. Let's look at these different types of hearers, and him who has ears, let him hear. Let's look at the first seed.
Jeffrey Heine:
These are the seeds that were scattered and they fell along the path, and then let's say they would just kind of scatter seed out and it was only after the seed was scattered that they would plow the ground, and so they didn't know what was underneath the surface, if it'd be rock or what it would be until after they had scattered the seed. But here there's the seed, it goes on a path and this path represents a very hardened heart, a very busy heart. You know, one in which people are too busy to really stop and to listen, it's a path. Too much is going on in their life, and so it's not very hard for Satan to just quickly pluck away that word that landed on their path and they never think about it again. Or if Satan can't make them forget the words they hear, usually, this is what I've seen over the years, he just kind of makes you embarrassed to believe it, Embarrassed to even consider it.
Jeffrey Heine:
And I saw this, I worked for about 10 years in college ministry, and I saw this happen over and over and over again to college students. In which, you know, they go to some university where they think they're gonna be really lifted up in their faith, and they find themselves in a religion class. And the professor just shreds them, shreds their faith and they crumble. Over and over again, they they would absolutely crumble. And so I would get to talk to student after student who would come into my office and just, they would say how, you know, they no longer believe in these things.
Jeffrey Heine:
And I would ask them, okay, well, what arguments did your professor tell you? And they would tell me all these things, but it was never an argument. The professor would just kind of sneer. You just kind of say, you know, fundamental Christians might believe something stupid like that. But he never made an argument.
Jeffrey Heine:
He never actually showed facts. He just sneered and and I began to think when I was in college and I had a number of religion classes, it was the same thing. I would I would hear things like, certainly no sane person could believe in the physical resurrection. Or only an uneducated fundamentalist would believe in a literal interpretation of the bible, Or Joel, this is the 20th century. We no longer believe a lot of the things that people believed in the first century.
Jeffrey Heine:
We need to progress in our thinking, not digress. But all of those are just sneers. There's no argument. It's just simply to kind of poke fun. But a a a sneer from the devil is far more effective than any kind of argument.
Jeffrey Heine:
And it plucks that seed away. The next time somebody comes up to you and says something like that, just say, hey, you know what, that's actually not an argument. That a literal interpretation of the Bible is just stupid. Please give me something. Tell me something.
Jeffrey Heine:
Don't listen to the snares. Let's look at the 2nd seed here, verse 13. Says, and the ones on the rock are those who when they hear the word, they receive it with joy, but these have no root. They believe for a while and in time of testing, fall away. Let me just quickly say we don't know whether this person is a Christian or not.
Jeffrey Heine:
You could spend a lot of time trying to decide, I personally don't think this person is a believer. But the main point is Jesus does not look favorably upon this person. So whether they're Christian or not, Jesus looks disapprovingly upon this person, does not want you to be this person. And what's being described here is a purely emotional response to the gospel. Notice these people received it with joy, Absolute joy, they're happy about receiving this word.
Jeffrey Heine:
They're thrilled about see receiving this word. It is filled for them in their heart a very emotional need that they have. Now, a lot of peep probably a lot of you in this room came to know the lord this way, through through the Lord meeting an emotional need. I don't know many people who've just kind of gone through life, you know, and somebody presented them with the gospel, and they kinda weighed the evidence, and thought, you know, yeah, you know, come to think of there's a lot of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. I'm I'm gonna place my faith and trust in Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:
Most people don't come to know the Lord that way. Usually, there's a crisis. Maybe a death in the family. Maybe you're suffering through depression, going through divorce, something like that that the lord has used to soften your heart. And then god meets you, and he meets a very emotional need that you have.
Jeffrey Heine:
You open your heart to him, and you receive joy. You cry out to the Lord. He gives you peace, and he gives you comfort, and there is nothing wrong with coming to know the Lord that way. Now, what's wrong is when you come to depend on that emotion. Is when you come to associate that your relationship with the Lord has to look like that.
Jeffrey Heine:
That to encounter the Lord is to encounter that emotion over and over and over again. And you see, maybe you know some people like this, whether they're Christian or not, who come to depend upon having to have that emotion. It's like they go from one spiritual high to the next spiritual high to the next spiritual high. They evaluate whether a church service was a good service or not by whether they cried or felt chill bumps or you know, whatever it is, but they had to feel something. The relationship with Jesus is dependent upon this.
Jeffrey Heine:
And what I've seen is when this happens, Jesus ceases to be their god. Their their real god is the experience of Jesus. Not Jesus, but it's experiencing Jesus is their god. It kind of reminds me, I used to go to Northern Ireland a lot during the summers, and I would do vacation Bible Schools there for some kids who lived in some really rough neighborhoods. And some of y'all have been on the trips with me.
Jeffrey Heine:
But I'd get off the van, and I'd go there, and I'd love to try to find, you know, one of the roughest kids there, and I'd I'd beeline it to them and try to play with that kid. And one thing I'd always do is I'd pick up the kid and I just kind of spin them around. They they call them whirlies, and they're, you know, you just give them a whirly over and over, and and just laugh, and you just do that all day. So much fun. And then the next day I would come and what's the first thing they see me and they beeline it towards me and they're like, whirly, whirly, whirly, just give me a whirly, and I would give them some, but then then I'd want to talk.
Jeffrey Heine:
So let's talk, you know, I want to get to know you. And a few would stay. Some would leave. And then the next day I'd come there, and you know, some people would come and they'd be like, hey are you giving whirlies? You know, and I like, oh I give you a few, and I had spin them around a little bit, but this time they're not even that excited about it.
Jeffrey Heine:
And, they would come to kind of leave. A few would stay. Now if you were to ask those people who, you know, I would give those whirlies to, and their excitement for them waned over the week. It was never the same high as that first time. But if you were to ask them, do you know Joel?
Jeffrey Heine:
They'd say, well, well, I've spent the last week with them, but I know nothing about him apart from him giving whirlies. I don't know what he likes, dislikes. I don't know what he's passionate about. I don't know if he has any kids. I don't know if he's married.
Jeffrey Heine:
I don't I don't know what he thinks, what he believes. I know nothing about him. A lot of people approach God the exact same way. When they first meet God, it's like it's like he picked him up in his in your his arms and he just gave you a spin and he met that emotional need, and you're like, amazing. So next time you meet him, you're like, lift me up.
Jeffrey Heine:
Spin me again. Lift me up. Spin me again. And God's saying, well, I want you to know me. Let's talk.
Jeffrey Heine:
And you're like, well, we could talk after you lift me up and take me for a spin and but each time it's never the same. But yet, you never progress in your faith. You never actually get to know the Lord. It's pure emotionalism. We seek God for more and more experiences, but not for him.
Jeffrey Heine:
And you can only keep this up for so long before you burn out. Jesus says this is like a seed landing on a very, very thin soil and it has no root at all. Often these emotional, what I would call emotional Christianity, it's really just a reaction against a lot of doctrinal controversies. People like, I don't need doctrine, you know, they would hear something, you know, some doctrinal issue, like I don't need it. All I need to know is Jesus loves me and that's it.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's it. That's all I need to know is just and just experience his love. And I would agree with you that yes, Christianity is more than doctrine, but it is certainly not less. There are some things you have to believe. And growing in your Christian faith is certainly more than doctrine, but it is certainly not less.
Jeffrey Heine:
You need to grow in your knowledge of the Lord. And once again, I'm not Jesus is not against emotions, but he is against emotionalism. And as your pastor, I need to caution you. I need to caution myself against directly appealing to your emotions when I preach. Because it's easy to do and it's easy to get results by appealing directly to your emotions.
Jeffrey Heine:
One of my favorite pastors, Jonathan Edwards, was so scared of directly appealing to people's emotions. He would get a manuscript, and he would read it in the most monotone voice as he could, and the great awakening followed. Because my fear is what happens when that emotion leaves. What are you left with? You've heard me say, this a number of times about Western Christianity, That it's a mile wide and an inch deep.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's a mile wide and inch deep. And this is somewhat of a recent phenomenon. The church didn't always used to be like this, and, about about 20 years ago, maybe a little over 20 years ago, you saw this kind of invading the youth groups in American churches, in which, youth groups, they realize that if you want to grow a really big group, well, you just play to their emotions. And so, you know, you you you get the the loud music you want, you do the lighting how you want, you play all the games you want, you do all these fun activities that you want, and you do all this and you will gather a enormous youth group. And you can make people make decisions for the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's not that hard to do in a group setting like that when you're playing on the emotions and you bring bring all that stuff in. And it worked. Youth groups were flooding in, you know, had all these decisions being made. And then what happened is these youth, they grew up, they went to college, and then after college they tried to find a church and they realized they all hated church. Because church was so incredibly boring.
Jeffrey Heine:
It wasn't anything like youth group. It was so boring, and so the church, they had to try to decide, well, what do we do? And they had 2 options. Either we change the way we do youth group to where we go back to where we actually teach them the word of God, we teach them how to study the Bible, we do all this, or we need to change our services. And so they changed the services to make them like youth group.
Jeffrey Heine:
And you can see this in all of these churches around, and there became a huge focus on how, you know, the the the emotional music, the the lighting, the the fun and the games, the entertainment, the different speakers you would draw on. All this thing, it became a result because it worked in youth group, and now it's gonna work for a church at large and it's a play on the emotions. But there's not the depth of understanding the word of God, letting it transform your hearts. That's a gross generalization. But you've seen it being played out in America over the last 20 years, in which we become a mile wide and an inch deep.
Jeffrey Heine:
Jesus speaks against that. Let's look at the 3rd seed. Look at verse 14. Says, and as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear. But as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.
Jeffrey Heine:
I think this represents what you might call an intellectual Christianity. Here you have someone who would know all of the right answers, who would know their doctrine, be very orthodox, but these things haven't really hit their heart. And and if it has somewhat hit their heart, what it found was there was a lot of company in the heart. It was a heart divided. There were other things growing in the heart as well.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so when the gospel would begin to grow, other things would begin to grow as well. Thorns, Thorns which would eventually take up all the nutrients, all the moisture, and would eventually kill that seed of the gospel. I've seen this happen in so many people. Often this is that person, and maybe you all know this kind of person, maybe you are this kind of person, who's so fixated on a certain doctrine. You know, there is one doctrine, you know, maybe it's gifts of the spirit, maybe it's predestination, maybe it's, serving the poor, but there's there's some doctrine and that is their lens.
Jeffrey Heine:
That is how they judge and they evaluate every single Christian that's out there, whether they're love the Lord or not know the love the Lord or not love the Lord is by whether they believe that doctrine. These people come armed, ready to fight. They're divisive. And they very well might know the truth, but they've never been humbled by the truth. It's never really hit their heart.
Jeffrey Heine:
And these people, you look at them and there is such little joy about them. Such little joy. As a matter of fact, they're often very suspicious of any Christian who actually displays joy. The problem with this intellectual Christianity is that God made your heart to soak in the joy of the Lord. That's what he made your heart for.
Jeffrey Heine:
And if your faith, if you're not finding joy in your faith, you're gonna find joy in other things, and your heart's gonna be divided. I want you to look at what chokes out the gospel, chokes out this Christianity. It's not drugs and rock and roll, which I grew up, you know, hearing my Baptist church. It says, what chokes the life out is the cares and riches and pleasures of life. The cares and riches and pleasures of life.
Jeffrey Heine:
Now riches and pleasures are things we pursue. Saying, the things that you pursue are actually what is choking out the seed of the gospel in you. They're actually smothering out the Word of God. The reason we have, you know, 300 channels on TV, or we have, you know, so many DVDs at, you know, rental stores or or at Walmart or wherever, the reason that we pack out arenas or we pack out stadiums so we can root for teams, is because we're so bored. It's because American Christians are so bored.
Jeffrey Heine:
They're not enthralled with God, and so they gotta become enthralled with something else. They've got a divided heart. God's not meeting their joy, so they go to all these things just to just to try to kill time. And most of the time, not all of the time, but most of the people that pack out a stadium and are cheering their hearts out, what they're doing is counterfeit worship. They're actually doing what God created them to do, and that's to be in a community celebrating greatness.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's what they're doing. They want to be in a community of people celebrating greatness. That's worship, and it's counterfeit. They're not finding it in a church. They're not finding it in their community of faith, and so they put it out on something else.
Jeffrey Heine:
Something that is far less worthy. That's not all. I'm not saying you can't go to a football game. Go. But check the motives as to why.
Jeffrey Heine:
What is it in your heart that you're trying to satisfy when you cheer so loudly and you want that community around you? God has offered you joy through your word through His word. I think a lot of search is choking it out through good things. So look at this final seed. Seed number 4, it's the good soil.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's when the Word of God finds a deep root in your heart and you believe it, you hold on to it, you hold fast to it, this is when you have both a intellectual and an emotional attachment to the gospel. And Luke adds something here that none of the other gospels add when they write about this story. He adds the words with patience at the end. If you hold fast to the word of god, then you will bear fruit with patience. Meaning, it's gonna take time as you're pursuing the word and you're listening to the word of God for there to be fruit.
Jeffrey Heine:
There there's I know we want the mec Jesus. I mean, we want, you know, Jesus now. You You know, people come up to me afterwards and they say, lay hands on me. Give me the spirit now. Solve my problems now.
Jeffrey Heine:
We want that mec Jesus. Say, no, this is with patience. Well, what does this mean for us here? Let me just finish with a few things. There's a lot that it means.
Jeffrey Heine:
For starters, it means we need to be careful how we listen. Be careful how we listen. On Sundays, when you come, you need to come expecting to hear from the word of the Lord. You need to come with an expectancy. Not only through the sermon, but when the scriptures read at the beginning of the service.
Jeffrey Heine:
It might mean some of you might to get here a little bit earlier so you could be here for the scriptures read at the beginning of the service, or calm your hearts down to get ready to receive that word. It means that through the week, you've got to take time. You got to turn off the TV. You've got to quit checking your Facebook 20 times every single day. Just think of all the time that's wasted there.
Jeffrey Heine:
If every time you felt that urge to check Facebook, you instead dropped to your knees. You opened up the word, instead of looking at walls and posts. You know, one of one of the things that might be good, just a little practical suggestion, you know, you all probably have bookmarked on your computer, you know, Facebook or MySpace or whatever. Change the bookmark and call it time killer. And so every time you click on it, hey, I'm gonna click on the time killer.
Jeffrey Heine:
You know, label your TV time waster. You know, just let all you have to do is relabel things. You know, it makes you think twice when you pick up a remote, and you're like, I'm gonna turn on that time waster right now. I'm gonna tie I'm gonna turn on the things that are gonna suck away my desires from you guys. You know, relabel it.
Jeffrey Heine:
Some of you are on autopilot. You haven't even thought about it. I mean, these are good things. Cares, riches, pleasures of life, and they're choking you. I know it's funny but seriously, these things are choking you.
Jeffrey Heine:
And you and you wonder why you're not hearing from the lord. When's he gonna speak? We gotta get rid of those things, and we gotta come to him with that expectancy. He who has ears, let him hear. Means that we need to come and we need to believe God's word with all our heart, all of our soul, and all of our mind.
Jeffrey Heine:
Pray with me. He who has ears, let him hear. Verily, verily, I say unto you. Listen, listen. Those are the words that you would speak to us, Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:
There's an urgency about your word that we have forgotten. Forgive us. Lord, we can't change on our own. Our hearts are drawn to so many things. Like like moth to a flame, we are drawn to things that will kill us, unless you change us.
Jeffrey Heine:
Draw us to yourself. Lord Jesus. We pray this in your name. Amen.