Hard Hearts, No Harvest (Mark 4:1-20)

And at the same time, as when you hear the word of God spoken over and over and you continue to reject it, that will just harden your heart more and more. So the question is not, will God's word shape you? It's how is it gonna shape you? Will you become more humble and submit to the Lord, or will you harden your heart and turn away from him? When Jesus taught the word of God, we see two main responses. We see repentance and obedience, and we see rejection and hate. [00:11:36] (29 seconds)  #RepentOrReject

And so my question to you this morning on the fruitful heart, if this is you and I hope and pray that it is most of us this morning, is to ask yourself this week, is there evidence that the word of God is changing you? Are you producing the fruits of the spirit? Are you growing in love? Are you growing in peace and patience and kindness, gentleness? Are you growing in these areas? I'm not asking or looking for perfection because nobody here will be perfect, but are you actively growing and are you producing fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold, a supernatural fruit? [00:34:15] (35 seconds)  #FruitfulHeart

But those quick excitements and those quick decisions lead to quick fading. Spelling's wrong on that. That's my bad. Quick fading. They quickly fade away from the word of God that was planted in their hearts. It's a faith that's real in the moment but cannot endure pressure. And here's something I want you to note, that affliction doesn't destroy real faith. It exposes weak faith. Affliction in this world, trivial, whatever you wanna call it, it doesn't destroy strong and real faith, but it will expose you if you have weak faith. [00:27:44] (44 seconds)  #FaithUnderPressure

Here's the pattern that Jesus is describing in his parable. When truth is received and acted upon, more understanding comes. When you receive the word of God and when you act upon it, he will grant you more understanding. And when truth is ignored or when it's rejected, your heart hardens further. Think about it like a muscle. Right? If if you work out, you know that the more you work out, the more you build muscles, the stronger they get, the better they are. [00:18:37] (29 seconds)  #ActOnTheWord

Are you gonna be able to realize that you can't have both things? You cannot love both God and money, as scripture says. You cannot serve two masters. You started loving God. You said, man, I love you so much. And then you you love something else. And eventually, you're gonna come to a point where God asked you to put this thing to the side and to let it go, and you're not willing to do it. So you say, okay, God. Goodbye. [00:31:15] (24 seconds)  #ChooseGodOverMoney

See, the divided heart isn't necessarily it isn't outright rejecting God, but it's competing with him. Putting God on one pedestal. It's putting something in this world on another pedestal and saying whichever one can make me happier wins. It's saying, God, I love you. I want you, but I also really love this thing over here, and I really want this thing over here. So I'm gonna pursue it too, but but I'll hang on to you, God. But I'm I'm gonna pursue this as well. [00:30:43] (29 seconds)  #DividedHeart

Because I think if we're honest, this one is probably the majority of people into today's world. The majority of Christians, the majority of Americans, the majority of human nature is that something is competing. Something is always in danger of choking out our love for God. What has your attention, your affection, your energy more than God himself? And whatever that is, put it to death. Because if you don't put it to death, it will put your love for Christ to death. [00:32:02] (34 seconds)  #KillIdols

Because hearing the word of God, it's never going to be neutral. You can hear it, and when you hear it, your heart is either being softened towards it or it's gonna be hardened towards the word of God. There is no neutrality in the word of God because the word of God is living and active as scripture says. So either your heart is being softened, you're being going to in humility, or it's being hardened, and you are rejecting it. [00:20:43] (22 seconds)  #WordIsLiving