Lessons from the Soils - The Beginning of the Kingdom part 2

Let's take our Bible. Let's turn back to Matthew chapter 13 Matthew 13 that's where we were last week We have those kingdom parables that are there all throughout the chapter and I think I mentioned this several times I know I have we've got seven or eight parables there and we're gonna cover every one of them because they're all extremely important Now tonight we are still Looking at the beginning of the kingdom or the beginning of the church age.

That's what these mysteries of the kingdom are all about This is about the beginning of the church age in the church as we know it Now, of course This is explained there in the first parable the parable of the sower And if you've read any of the parables if you've read ahead You know that the Lord spends a lot more time on this parable Then he does the others some of them some of the others are rather short Last week we examined the parable of the sower And what I mean by that is we dug into the meaning of the parable and we saw what Jesus was teaching We saw that the parable is all about the proclaiming of the gospel the proclamation of the gospel The Word of God which is about Jesus and his kingdom and at the center of this parable.

There are four different soils But these soils represent four different types of human hearts And at the center of the parable is how these four different hearts these four different individuals? React to the gospel how they react to the truth of God's Word when it is proclaimed to them Now tonight, I want to make a great deal of application From the parable. I'm not going to reteach it.

Although I'm going to summarize some of the teaching I'm going to apply it to our day in our time and I want to really help us understand our greater church culture our church experiences and why we do what we do here at Grace Life Church and this is all in light of the parable, all right Now you might say pastor. Why not just move on to the next one? Why not just move on why spend the extra time? We have to work hard here folks. We've got to work hard to allow the parables to help us understand The church culture from which we've come now. We all have different church experiences.

I know that We all have to work hard to understand our own church experiences and why we do what we do here I was having a good conversation with Jared this week and he was talking about a Nationally known very well-known minister. He was a minister. He left the ministry. He's left the faith There's this popular term now. It's called deconstructing the faith, but he leaves his ministry position.

He leaves the faith He's deconstructing his faith and there's just a lot of buzz around this particular individual and I was explaining to Jared You know if you filter his life and what he's doing through the parables and answers a lot of questions And it will help us more than we know and to be honest with you These are some things we've got to chew on and work on and process over time and that's good Now last week I shared with you that I had an advantage My home church pastor taught through the parables Thoroughly and he taught on the kingdom parables Especially this parable the parable of the sower and I did share with you that I did struggle to understand this teaching But I worked hard I dug into the scriptures the scripture interprets the scripture I got good counsel from my pastor because I wanted to understand the meaning of this parable and listen gaining that Understanding a quit me For a ministry in a great way.

Let me explain what I mean just understanding that people can make what seems to be a true profession of faith and Still be lost listen that helped me grasp the reality that there are people who profess Christ In and around the church and they're not Christian There are people that can't fathom that reality and it is a tremendous stumbling block to them in the Christian life and in the ministry Understanding that the teaching of the word actually Persecutes people and it proves people that helped me know why certain people would get angry at biblical teaching and ultimately they would get angry and they would fight against you and Eventually even fall away and there are people that don't understand that and it causes them a great amount of heartache Not that we wink at that.

No, but if we know why it does help us And this is what we're seeking after folks understanding understanding and not just understanding and Understanding that enables us to handle church and church life and this helps us in our practice and our behavior in our practice and our behavior reflects an understanding of what is taught here. Let me get you to turn to the end of the chapter of Chapter 13 remember this is at the end. So this is after Jesus had taught those believers and his disciples All these parables about the kingdom and at the very end. This is what he says in verse 51 Have you understood?

All these things was he saying guys Ladies you get this Have you understood all these things and they said to him? Yes Now that is a huge statement because in understanding these things that was preparing them for what? Their future ministry in the work of the church So tonight I'm going to give you the title of the message and that is the beginning of the kingdom part two And I'm calling this lessons from the soils Now I'm not gonna give you any more information Just follow me If you can write stuff down good, if not, that's okay I'd rather you follow me with your mind and your heart in your ears and if you need my notes I promise I'll email them to you and I might even help you Decipher them because they're not always easy to understand Sometimes it's just best not to have a bunch of stuff on the screen and tonight is one of those times.

So Number one remember we studied the hard heart Remember I called him the hard heart. This is the Unresponsive hearer now I go back to the explanation just one verse verse 19 Jesus is explaining that seed that falls on the hard path and what does he say when anyone hears the word of the kingdom? And he does not understand it the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart This is the one on whom the seed was sown Beside the road or along the path This person is easy for us to identify Might not be fun, but it is easy and we know lots of people just like this They're in our families They may be even in our church.

They may be even coming to church with us They hear the gospel they hear the truth of God's Word, but they're really unfazed They're unmoved They hear of Jesus Christ and his lordship and the message of the gospel has no effect on their heart and their mind This person is obviously lost. They are in need of Christ now here I want to ask three questions that'll help us be able to deal with this hard-hearted Here these are three lessons that I just pull out of the teaching here number one our first What makes the heart hard I dealt with his son, but I'm going a little deeper because we've got to ask that question What makes this man what makes this person what makes their heart hard?

This person's heart is hard because of sin and sinfulness as well as embracing the world and worldliness The Bible commentator Richard Trent says and I'm quoting he this person has exposed his heart as a common road To every influence of the world till it has become hard as pavement He is right on the money. Let me say it again.

Richard Trent says he this hard-hearted here They have exposed their heart as a common road to every influence of the world Till it that heart has become hard as pavement This is the person that is described in Romans chapter 1 that might surprise you They are described in Romans 1 they have suppressed the truth of God that they know They have suppressed now notice Natural revelation that's all around them.

They have suppressed the specific revelation of God from his word and by Suppressing the truth if they know they embrace sin and more sin Boy I ran across something even this week that really resonated with me and I think it's good for us The Bible commentator James Montgomery Boyce describes this as a circle and I'm paraphrasing what he says But I want to give credit where credit is due He says the a sin Leads to a rejection of God in his truth and that rejection of God and his truth leads to more and greater sin See it's a big circle a big circle of sin and more sin and rebellion and more rebellion Now what causes the behavior Romans 1 18 the suppression of truth?

The suppression of truth and then also the embracing of sin. It's just a cycle Now what's my point here? We must see what makes this heart hard We must see the depth of this sinful hard heart. We must see the danger of suppressing truth We must see the danger of allowing sin in the life We must see the danger of allowing sin in the life the danger of suppressing truth the truth of God's word the gospel and the reality that doing more sin and suppressing more truth and Projecting more truth and embracing more sin.

It just leads to more sin and more sin So we must see what makes this hard heart now, let me say this before I move on I Don't think we could ever fully grasp the depth of the sinfulness of the human heart, but boy we've got a try Listen mom's dads. Don't tell your children. They're good little boys and girls now We want to build up their self-esteem in a good way.

I know that we don't browbeat our kids and all that No, look we love them and we build them up Yes, but we always point them to what the word of God says about their heart If you don't you will harden their heart You will harden out heart and we cannot allow sin in our homes and hypocrisy And we can't allow our kids to go off into sin and such We must bring the truth of God's word to them if we suppress the truth. They'll suppress the truth I can go on and on here sin and sinfulness is a serious thing and not only that Rejecting the truth that is around us is a serious thing and we must teach our children these things now Let me move on.

So this first question what makes the heart heart second can this hard-hearted person be saved? Can they if they're that sinful? Can they be saved? Well, the answer is yes But they are saved just like all the other people are saved by work of God, you see What are we just saying? There is no sinner beyond the infinite. What's the rest of it? Stretch of his mercy. Thank you.

I didn't remember the words But notice Paul's heart the Apostle Paul he was saw before he became Paul his heart was hard with what? persecution and violence and murder against Christ because what did Jesus say Jesus said he was persecuting Christ him Nicodemus his heart was hard with religion the woman at the well her heart was hard with gross immorality But in every case it was God who broke through that hard heart to bring them to faith in Christ Now listen, how are these people saved?

All people are saved the same way First God works to draw that person to himself by the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit Second the Holy Spirit convicts them of their sin God's righteousness and the judgment to come Third he that's the spirit grants them repentance in faith, which is a work of regeneration And then fourth that person cries out trusting in Christ That person repents of their sin and they put their faith in their trust in Christ. It's the same with everybody So the hard-hearted person can be saved third question What do we do? We got a hard-hearted brother. We've got a hard-hearted mother or father.

We've got a hard-hearted neighbor Oh, we've described somebody that we know maybe we work with them. What do we do? First we must grasp the reality of who this hard-hearted person truly is We can't sugarcoat it can't try to be overly nice here. We can't make excuses If we run them through the grid of what God's Word says here We got to just take what comes out the other side and listen if we're going to deal with them properly We have to know who they are and what they are from the start Give you an example Pastor friend of mine has a son and he's lost and he needs Christ.

He grew up religious He knows the answers, but he has demonstrated that hard heart. He's gone away from the things of God He raised him right as he should but he went off to college and he went the way of the world He embraced sin and more sin and it's a sad sad situation But he understands him properly and he deals with him properly Now what do we do though What do we do in my opinion?

The first thing we do is pray we pray and we pray more I've taught you through the years Luke 11 where Jesus teaches on prayer and Jesus teaches us there that When we have those around us who are in need they're in spiritual need we pray for a work of the Holy Spirit of God In their lives and in that teaching there We have a friend who needs bread and they need bread from heaven Which is the work of the Holy Spirit and then we look for opportunities to witness to them We want to share the gospel with them.

We want to call them to their need for Christ Now let me share with you a little bit of information here about this witnessing We've got to be direct We've got to look them right into the eye and we've got to be direct loving yes rude no Arrogant no Condescending no loving. Yes direct we have to be truthful. We must point out their sin We must point out their sinful condition We must tell them what God says about their sin what God says about their spirit sinful condition We must expose their lostness and call them to see it We must tell them of the judgment in the eternal damn nation that they deserve We must show them the eternal consequences of their sin and we must call them to repentance and faith and listen We've got to use the personal pronoun you This is you Not being rude in love and you know this one might surprise you We need to try to get those people to come to church with us even the small groups Yes to be a part of the work of the church not a member now They need to be taught they need to be under the taught word of God They need to be around true Christians They need to be in and around the work of the church not as members now Can they come to Christ outside of the church definitely so a?

Lot of times when a lost person is around real Christians It just shines the light on who they are the word is taught Bible studies are taught And it just keeps shining a light on who they are and I think that is a good thing to do And we have to see them for who they are what they are and we pray and we witness and we need God the Holy Spirit to work, but we must be willing to be the ambassador and The church needs to be willing to be the ambassador as well. We must work on this thing together with each other So listen this hard-hearted person can be safe. That was me folks.

I Was as hard-hearted as they can get not with religion now, but we just will sin I was vile But look two things were going on first of all there was a church praying for me and praying and fasting for me and I didn't even know and Somebody came into my life and witnessed to me and they looked me right in the face and they said it's you It's you this is you they open up God's Word It was what was needed to crack the armor of my hard heart.

It was the only thing it was the work of God They were willing to be that ambassador and God used that and ultimately He led me to the place where I could trust in faith and I go to the church and I find out there's all kind Of people they're praying because they believe that God could save a hard-hearted sinner. I Could say more but let's move on number two. Remember we covered the shallow heart that was the superficial Hearer the superficial quote-unquote Christian because they're not a Christian.

Let's look at verse 20 and 21 verse 20 and 21 And then Jesus says The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places This is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy yet He has no root or firm root in himself But is only temporary and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word they immediately fall away Now this person may be hard to identify for some We have all seen the superficial shallow hearted quote-unquote Christian Maybe you didn't know it and look some people can struggle to understand who and what these people are That's the purpose of the teaching here and this person is the one they hear the gospel They hear the truth of God and God's Word and they respond with a seeming genuine profession of faith in Christ But verse 21 says they fall away This phrase fall away means to be offended.

It means to to stumble because of that offense See they are offended they stumble and then ultimately they fall away Jesus says they receive the gospel and the truth of God immediately but with joy But after they are offended by the word and ultimately the true cost of true Christian discipleship They quickly fall away There are a few key things here to understand that these are not true Christians First they fall away First John 2 19 says that they went out from us because they never were of us These people that just go out from us and never come back. They go out.

They never were of a second There is no root to the gospel seed because their hearts were shallow all of their change was on the surface and not into the heart and Then third there was no fruit They had no genuine Christian fruit that comes from the good heart that allows the gospel seed to take root grow mature and produce fruit Now here's where I want to give you some lessons First lesson I call this one decisions and decisionism. I call this decisions and decisionism You see today in our southern Bible Belt Christian world our churches are flooded with shallow Hearted hearers and listen folks.

They are produced in mass We live in a day where there is an emphasis on decisions and numbers and Baptisms for all sorts of reasons today people join a church just on a whim. They have no counseling There is no method by which we can examine them to see if they're truly Converted and raise the standard of what church membership should be Notice how this happens this happens through all types of programming We have revivals that just pull people down the aisle.

We have crusades all of these types of events in Southern Baptist life we have this feel the tank They're begging churches to just fill up the tank and get anybody to be baptized anytime they want I remember years ago There was a local crusade here and I was on staff at a church and I was a part of that They called us to be a part and it was nothing more than just getting people to make decisions and the leader of the crusade Said it I heard it with my own ears He said we know that most of these people coming down the aisle are not going to be converted They're not going to be saved, but we want them to get into a church later, and then maybe they can get saved later Just making decisions And see we've all come from churches in a church culture that pushes decisions for Christ That is why we call this decisionism In these churches and in this church culture people are urged to make a profession of faith People are taught to simply repeat the sinner's prayer, and they are taught this if you'll repeat this prayer, then you'll be saved We have all been around also this emotional altar call evangelistic programming which plays on the emotions calls for those decisions and then these settings the true cost of discipleship is Emphasized it's ignored and many times most of the time.

It's never communicated and it's not even even known by many and Here is where we should understand how Jesus dealt with the emotional Superficial follower I'm gonna spend a little bit of time here, and it's very much needed I Want us to turn to John chapter 2? John chapter 2 Then let me share with you. What's going on at the end of John chapter 2 Jesus has a big crowd Jesus always had big crowds, but I want you to see what he says at the end of John chapter 2 I'm gonna start with verse 23 now when he Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast Many believed in his name Many as many it's a bunch Beholding his signs his miracles which he was doing they were coming because of the miracles But Jesus on his part was not entrusting himself to them for he knew all men and because he did not need anyone to bear witness Concerning man for he himself knew what was in the man now what's happening there?

Great crowds are coming They're saying they believe in Jesus and Jesus did not entrust himself to them because he knew they were false believers If you break it down in the original language it basically says this they were believing on him But he was not believing on them because he knew they were superficial He knew what would happen when they were put to the test Another example John chapter 6 John chapter 6 This is a wonderful two-day event and I challenge you to go study the event and you see how Jesus dealt with the crowds He dissected the people and why they were following him And if you study it you will see that he calls out one group after another group after another group Now I'm not gonna read any verses Some group followed him because they wanted another miracle.

I called him the wow me crowd They wanted to see another miracle. They were superficial they left Some group followed because they were looking for an earthly king Jesus didn't come to be an earthly king He pointed them out and they quit following him and There's another reason some were looking for this utility God all of the healings and all that and he wouldn't entrust himself to them either But then after all the crowd left, it's just the 12 and at the end of the chapter everybody left What did Jesus say verse 67 you do not want to go away also Do you Simon Peter answered him and said Lord to who shall we go?

Whom should we go you have the words of eternal life? We have believed and we have come to know that you are the holy one of God in the language there It's in the perfect tense. He was saying this we believed yesterday We believed today and we believe we believe tomorrow They were not superficial You see now, this is why I spend the time with this Jesus did not fall prey to decision and decisionism Decisions these people that made superficial decisions He did not entrust himself to them and we have to understand that now. What is my point?

Jesus knew that they were all following in their emotions And then also he wouldn't entrust himself to them and he called them out He revealed them as superficial and then he called them to true discipleship If you go to the end of John 6, he starts talking about eating my flesh and drinking my blood He's talking about the cross and dying And what is he saying if you're gonna follow me you got to follow me not because of a miracle But because you eat my flesh and drink my blood you've got to die Jesus did that all the time.

Then let me show you one more verse and I'm gonna read this one Luke the gospel of Luke Luke chapter 14 He's dealing with the cost of discipleship here. This is a portion of Scripture. I have not taught in years. I'm probably overdue here and I want you to notice what he says here and I'm gonna zoom through this paraphrase this Verse 25 Luke 14 now great multitudes were going along with him always these crowds And he turned and he said to them if anyone comes to me and he does not hate his own father his mother his wife His children his brothers and sisters. Yes, even his own life. He cannot be my disciple He drew a big line in the sand now.

What is he saying? Do we actually hate our parents? No, that would be to dishonor them This is what he's saying Your love for me has to be so great That it makes your love for your parents your children even your own life look like Kate That's the standard Then he moves on he says if anyone does not carry his own cross and come after me He cannot be my disciple. What is he saying? If you don't die, you can't come after me Then he does two things here teaches in parable and he teaches this count the cost He talks about a tower if anybody's gonna build a tower. What are they gonna do?

They're gonna count the cost Otherwise, they'll build the tower halfway and they can't finish it. They'll be ridiculed So what does he say you count the cost then he talks about kings going out to war and suing for peace What's the point there? He's talking about meeting the conditions So this is what he's saying if you're gonna follow me It costs you everything you got to die and oh by the way count the cost before you say you'll follow me You got to meet my conditions See Jesus did not put up with superficiality and I know I've taken some time here.

So the first lesson decisions and decisionism Jesus didn't have it in his ministry or when he did he dealt with it Now let's continue second lesson. I want us to see here Why this is in the form of a question? Why do so many churches and church leaders and ministers engage in this kind of evangelism? Why does so many have this kind of programming? Why do they do this? I think for several reasons, but I think a big part of this is is this Many people are just doing what they're taught It's just sheer ignorance and what they have been taught.

I mean, this is what they've been taught easy believe ism decisionism emotional evangelism is what they've been taught even in seminary and Listen this profession of faith and the sinner's prayer and repeat after me for many It is just all that they know I remember when my home church pastor was beginning to examine some of these things and he said guys This is just what I've been taught But another reason why I think a lot of guys do this It's a failure to understand some vital big biblical truth and let me stop right here This isn't in my notes I began to push back from Decisionism and decisions and all this stuff and when I begin to push back I got into the scriptures But these are some vital truths that the Lord taught me that I think many guys miss first of all the sinfulness of man if you understand man in his sinfulness biblically, you won't call people to do what they can't do and Then second the doctrine of regeneration when I discovered When I really begin to dig in and realize wait a minute Unless a man or a woman or a teenager is born from God.

They have no hope It put me on my knees. It made me realize that it's not dependent on me and my clever schemes. I just have to trust God Many fail to understand who the Holy Spirit is It's the third person of the Trinity the Holy Spirit is the one that reaches out and does what only God can do reveal sin reveal God's righteous standard open their eyes to the judgment that is to come and Many people fail to see the work of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of man and many fail to understand the order of Salvation and the order is important man does respond man trusts man cries out man Begs God for for mercy man cries out and repentance and faith But only after a work of the Holy Spirit of God only in that man and man is able to cry out for saving grace Only when he is born of the Spirit of God.

It is the miracle of the new birth So to mean many churches and I'm trying not to hurl too many stones many leaders do these things because they just are ignorant of so much and I Needed a work of God in me to bring me out of that Third question still dealing with this superficial here now, what do we do? First of all, we must understand that if the Word of God is taught These people will fall away Jesus says it if the Word is taught and the true cost of discipleship is brought before them. They'll fall away Listen in so many churches today the superficial here does not fall away because there's no persecution from the Word.

I Don't say that arrogantly Meaning never fall away because there's no persecution from the world from the Word Listen, there is little to no preaching of the Word in so many places. So there's no heat It's fluffy evangelism. It's fluffy Christianity It's fluffy teaching and there's no cost in many churches. The entire thing is nothing but superficial superficial evangelism superficial preaching and teaching the purpose of the church is superficial the Programming of the church is superficial.

The whole thing is fluff But what do we do First we understand that they'll fall away if there is a cost to their discipleship port before them Second we do not create a place for them. We do not create a place for them We do not create shallow superficial Christians and we won't we don't want to create a place for them to stay in that Jesus never did that's why I read you those verses and What do we do we evangelize them? the hard-hearted Can be saved the superficial they can be saved now, I'm gonna give you a warning here I've dealt with this through the years If you deal with folks like this is lost people remember they profess Christ You will be accused of a couple of things First of all, you'll be accused of calling people to get saved again I've had that tag on me before.

Oh, you just think people need to get saved again. No, you're only converted once But people can get confused here and they can accuse you of preaching that people can get saved again Then you can be accused of this they can accuse you of believing that someone can lose their salvation. No, I don't believe that I Just believe that there are people who profess Christ and sometimes they're not converted And what we see here is Jesus explaining there are some that are superficial And so I'm warning you here if you begin to engage with those people those kind of things can happen Well, I keep asking this question. What do we do?

If we truly believe what Jesus is teaching here, then we hold high this standard This standard is the us the shallow hearted here who receives Jesus with great joy yet They fall away when the Word of God is pressed into their life. Well, they are not a true Christian and they just need to be called to salvation Number three the strangled heart are the worldly hearer the Strangled heart are the worldly here.

I'm gonna go back to Matthew 13 And I'm gonna read this verse verse 22 Jesus says and the one on whom the seed was sown among the thorns is the man who hears the word and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it becomes unfruitful Now earlier I said the shallow hearted quote-unquote Christian can be hard to identify for some well this one the Strangle hearted here can be even harder to identify But if we understand what Jesus is teaching here, we can understand and identify these individuals in time Now this person is the one who hears the gospel the word of the truth of God's Word They seem to respond but not like the previous one They do not respond with all of this great joy They do not respond with all of this great emotion necessarily, but they seem to be counted among the Christian now notice the gospel seed does not take root and Become fruitful either just like the other one It seems to temporarily take root But it is choked out by the cares of the world the deceitfulness of wealth riches That's what we see in verse 22 Simply it is choked out by the love of the world and a preoccupation of the world in worldly things It is choked out by their love for riches and all that come with riches.

I Think Richard Trent describes this individual very accurately here and I'm quoting he says in this case the profession Of the spiritual life is retained But the power of religion or true Christianity is by degree choked out. I Think Richard Trent helps us see something here. This person makes a profession in of Christ yet They hold on to the world.

They hold on to sin They hold on to riches and in time the seed of the gospel is choked out The gospel seed grows up But because they are unrepentant the seeds of sin grow up as well and that chokes out the gospel and it reveals them as a false convert Now I want to offer some lessons here number one When does this one this particular individual reveal themselves?

Whereas the shallow hearted here falls away and it seems to say that he does this quickly the worldly hearted here Seems to take time to develop it could even be years It takes time for those thorn seeds remember to grow into thorn bushes It takes time for the thorn bush bushes to choke out the gospel and the gospel seed And the word of God that is in the life Matter of fact some of my reading this week said that what happens is this person professes Christ professes the gospel and could talk about The things of God but over time it is so choked out that they don't even resemble what they once were So this takes time second question our second lesson the thorny hearted Christian Keeps his name on the church roll and his place on the back pew for the occasional time that he does come to church Now listen to me here The emotional hearted here we talked about them The emotional hearted here today is kept in the church because of what fluffy church.

There's no persecution There's a lack of the preaching of the Word of God. So they stay the superficial here is comfortable in church because of superficial church and Perficial church life it's really been created for them Well, the worldly hearted here stays in the church because sin is tolerated in the church Worldliness and the love of riches and the love of the world is not condemned.

It is commended These people can keep their name on the roll and they can come to church sporadically and when it is convenient all the while Posting their worldly living and their love for the riches of the world all over social media You see they'll come back to church when travel balls over They'll come back to church when vacation time is over and the kids go back to school They'll come back when you know, their business is more stable and they're not too tired and they don't have to sleep in on Sunday But they don't ever come back Now another question a Lesson is it a sin to have wealth and my condemning wealth?

No It's not a sin to have wealth. It's not a sin to be rich. It's a sin if it has you I Give you a verse you don't have to read this now I'm not gonna read it now first Timothy 6 17 Paul's writing Timothy Timmy's in Timothy's in Ephesus and Paul is telling Timothy what To say and Paul is calling those who are wealthy who are rich in this world to be rich in good deeds What is he saying you take your riches? I gave it to you and you use it to do good deeds in the world and in the church God blesses some people to be wealthy.

The trick is the wealth can't have them and he does it for a reason So it's not a sin to be wealthy Another question a lesson. How do we respond to these people? They need evangelization too They need the gospel too But let me get to this one question can't a safe person get sucked into a lying possessions and jobs and vacation and success and Riches distract them.

Yeah sure Listen when a professing Christian is confronted with their sin Especially this kind of sin if they show no concern that leads to repentance and a surrender to God and his word Well that gives us pause It should if they continue in that sin then we can have a reason to begin to suspect Suspect that they might not be a Christian, but we give it time You don't ever know when someone will come back around in repentance But when a professing Christian is confronted with their sin and especially this kind of sin here if they are truly a Christian Well, then there will begin this desire.

There'll be this desire to work towards repentance thus becoming a fruitful Christian I Was talking with a elder at Grace Life Church of Muscle Shoals and we were talking about church discipline and he said sometimes They've engaged in church discipline, but someone would get mad and he said man I think well this guy will never repent, but then they come back a week later Oh, I was so wrong and they'll repent and they'll be faithful So a Christian can be sucked into sin. I'm not trying to elevate too high of a standard here But listen church. Listen folks.

I'm gonna be careful with our time here So many churches their roles are flooded with people and you know what they are the superficial in the worldly and There's so many churches that have created a whole world that just accommodates those people It accommodates them in their sin number three. We're gonna try to move on Number three the open heart the receptive heart verse 123 the open heart the receptive heart and the one on whom the seed was sown on the good soil this is the man who hears the word and he understands it and indeed bears fruit and he brings forth some a hundred fold some 60 and 30 some 30 now I could make a lot more comments about the different hearts that we've examined I promise I could keep going but eventually we have to see the goal that Jesus has in mind now He's teaching all along the way, but he's trying to get somewhere Only the one heart that heart that receives the gospel the truth of God's Word It finds its way in their heart.

It becomes fruitful. They receive it That's the one and the only one that is a Christian they hear the gospel. They receive it. They understand it It takes root and they produce fruit Remember the chart that I gave you I used that chart this week. I'm gonna read you verse 23 Matthew 13 23 Matthew's account Mark's account Luke's account notice some differences Matthew after what was sown on the good soil. This is the one who hears the word and he understands it Mark 420 but those who were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word they accept it Luke 8 15 as for the one the good soil.

They are those who hear the word but Hold it and hold it fast in an honest and good heart Now how can this be How can a sinful wicked human heart? Understand it Accept it hold fast to it with an honest and good heart how? John MacArthur says it is because this heart has been prepared by the work of the Holy Spirit of God as described in John 16 8 to 11 Albert Barnes says this heart has been prepared by work of grace to receive the gospel honestly John Gill says that this type of heart comes by the work of God and this is owing to God's Dishes gracious grace in other words this affecting mysterious work of grace in the heart it comes from God folks now two lessons here For one to have a good heart it must come from God you say pastor you've said it we can't say it enough man can't accomplish this Listen, even if you do not understand all of the ins and outs of what happens from a theological Perspective even if you don't understand this by God and for God Even if you can't cross the T's and dot the I's theologically if you can get to the place where you'll say only God only God Then you'll be right and Then second the good heart is rare When we look at the gospel seeds, they're scattered remember the parable the farmer sowing the seeds their professions made Professions made by so many but the good heart is rare now in closing We must see that Jesus is giving us The origin of the kingdom the beginning of the kingdom remember these are mysteries about the church in the church age Mysteries once hidden now, they're being revealed to his disciples think about this He's preparing them for what's going to happen starting in acts chapter 2 when the Spirit comes These are mysteries of the church in the church age and this is what he's doing He's showing them how it begins now if we fast forward what happens at the day of Pentecost they preach and what happens?

This starts taking place. They start going all over the world So when what sewing what gospel seeds and then they have to deal with these people Properly now notice if they didn't deal with these people properly They would have started off wrong from the beginning So, what do we have? This is the front door of the church You see this is the beginning of it all now.

Let me say this and then we're gonna close You must understand that these kingdom parables are all connected If you get one wrong, it ruins them all and if you get this one wrong, you can forget the rest Understanding this one sets us up for the next one and look if you've got some questions Hold on to them because we're probably gonna answer them and you can ask me. There's no such thing as a dumb question I promise I've got a corner market on all of the dumb questions