Cultivating Good Soil: Hearing and Understanding God's Word

1. "If there is an understanding attached to what we hear, then we have not truly heard anything. Hearing and understanding have to go hand in hand. And for us in this room, if we're following after Jesus, when it comes to scripture, this is so important. Not just hearing the scriptures, not just hearing the word of God, but learning to understand what God is saying to us. And over the centuries, this has been done very well. And at times, it's been done very poorly. And I'm sure you've been a part of, unfortunately, it being done poorly before where somebody takes the word of God, the Holy Scripture, and they take it out of context, make it say whatever they want it to say, and then spiritual abuse follows. It's terrible. But when it's done correctly, the word of God is truth. And it reveals truth to us." [08:59] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "The word of God is truth. It shows truth. It is the standard. So we have to truly hear and understand. And if that's the goal, how do we do it? How do we fight off the footpath ears, or the rock ears, or the thorn ears? How do we do that? Because there are things we can do to cultivate good ears, good soil, good hearts. Remember the parable, it had started out saying, the seed that fell on the footpath, it got snatched away. So first up, we have the seed that fell on the footpath. How do we fight that? We fight the footpath with the right community." [16:26] (36 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "The right community, it fights the footpath ears because the right community produces things in our life that bring us closer to Christ. It produces things like faith and strength and accountability and healing and awe of God. And scripture talks about all of these over and over again. When it comes to our community helping our faith, there's this story of three friends in the Old Testament, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Maybe you've heard this story before if you've been around church. It's amazing. And to boil a huge complex story down to like 10 seconds, these three friends were essentially like brought into captivity. They are slaves in a foreign land. And in this foreign land, the rule is if you do not worship the false gods that they have set up, if you don't bow to those idols, then you are going to get thrown in a fiery furnace. So these three friends together stand side by side and go, no, we're not going to do that. We're only going to worship the one true God. That's it." [19:02] (60 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "We fight the footpath with the right community. We fight the rocks with faith over feelings. And number three. We fight the thorns with contentment. We fight the thorns with contentment. The parable remember it said. The seed that fell among the thorns. Represents those who hear God's word. But all too quickly. The message is crowded out. By the worries. The worries of life. And the lure of wealth. This is why when we. This is what happens when we're. We're trying to follow Jesus. And we're trying to follow the culture at the same time. Or we're trying to follow Jesus. And follow the world at the same time. But we cannot do it. We cannot follow the world and follow Jesus. They are directly opposed to each other. One says to give. The other says to get. One says to live selflessly. The other says to live selfishly. You can't do it. Jesus says. You cannot serve. You cannot serve two masters. You can't serve both God. And the stuff of this world. Because it will tear you apart." [32:06] (57 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "Something we have to understand here. Is that we don't follow after Jesus. Because he makes our life feel better. We follow after Jesus. Because he is actually better than life. We have to choose to trust in God. Even when we don't feel it. To me. Worship is one of the best ways. That we can put this into practice. Actually worshiping God through song. It can help teach us. How to actually choose faith over feelings. Because when we are going through this. Through good times. It's easy to come into church. And sing about the goodness of God. You know. It's like. Oh man. All my life you have been faithful. Oh yes God. You're so faithful. All my life you have been so, so good. Yes. You're so good God. Because life's good. But when life isn't going good. That's the last thing you want to do. Is stand in church with everybody. And go. And I will sing of the goodness of God. No. I'm not going to do it today. I don't feel that today." [26:37] (55 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "We cannot be content if we are filled with worry. So then the question becomes. Okay. So then how do we fight our worry? Paul talks about this. It's talked about all throughout scripture. But Paul specifically in Philippians 4. He tells us that we should replace our worry with prayer. He talks about in verse 6. He says. He says don't worry about anything. Instead. Pray about everything. Don't worry about anything. Instead. That means we replace it. We replace our worry with prayer. There's another scripture. In 1 Peter. It talks about how we should cast our cares. How we should cast our anxieties onto Christ. Like a net. It gives us this picture of a big fishing net. Where we're just taking it and throwing it out there to Jesus. Like hey man. Here's all the stuff I'm worried about. Here you go. That's what they're talking about here. That we would talk to God in those moments of worry. Because prayer. It doesn't have to be this over complicated thing. It can be simple. Small communications to God. That we would replace worry with prayer." [35:07] (59 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "And to boil this whole thing down into one sentence. If you're taking notes. Our ears become good soil. To truly hear when we are in the right community. Trusting in the truth. And living with contentment. And then when that happens. We become that fourth soil. Producing a harvest with our lives. So where are you at today? Where are you at today? For a few different groups of people in this room. How's your hearing? How's your heart? Is it hard like the footpath? Is it hard like the footpath? Is it shallow like the rocks? Is it divided by the thorns? Where are you at? And what is your immediate next step that you need to take? Because we all have one. Every single one of us in this room. Find ourselves in one of these categories." [36:54] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "Maybe you're here and you're not following Jesus. You haven't fully surrendered your life to Christ. What is your response today? Maybe it is to make that decision to say yes to Jesus. Yes to following him. Yes to surrendering your life. To him. And accept that what he did on the cross was for you. A free gift given. Because all of these things that we talked about today only truly happens when we have first surrendered our heart to Christ. And you're not going to have it all figured out first. Some of you are sitting there like, yeah, but I just have so many questions still. You're always going to have questions. You know how many questions and doubts still creep in all of the time? That's not what following Jesus is about. The journey of faith is a journey of surrendering. And trusting God every day. All of the time. But it's the greatest journey we could ever take. And that journey starts with a first step. Of saying, yes, God, I'm going to surrender my heart and my life to you." [40:16] (59 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)