Where You Are is not Who You Are

Truth Stories, the name of our series here at Stone Lakes Church. Each weekend this summer we are looking at a different parable of Jesus, these short stories. If we've never met before, my name is Adrian. I am one of the pastors here and you may not know this if you haven't been here for a while, but I've gone through what you might call a transformation. Some of you have seen this happen. Has anybody been here longer than, let's say, seven years? Many of you, oh yeah, yes, congratulate yourselves. Some of you have been sitting in that same chair for probably 50 years, or however long this building has been here. But if you've been here for that long, you've seen it happen.

Funny story, I'm a, we're deep in rehearsals for Grease over at Cabrillo stage. Oh, some people know that I'm in the cast of Grease over here at Cabrillo next door. I have rehearsal and not too long from now. But there was a funny interaction I had with the musical director the other day and John Nordgren, he has played here, he's played saxophone here at Stone Lakes Church before. We're just talking about the old days of him playing here and he asked me a question. He said, "Hey, what's the name of that guy? He's like a bigger guy. He used to play guitar." And I was smiling. I'm like, "That's me! That was me because back then I look like this. This was me a few years ago." So if you haven't been here for a long time, that's a very different looking person.

But I remember this person right there is very hot, just like I was up here last night preaching. I was like, "It feels just like I was in quiet." Thank God for the air conditioning, the natural air conditioning, like Val said. I'm from Florida originally and you might think, "Oh, you're used to the heat." And I'm, "No." Because I was inside in the air conditioning, which Santa Cruz does not have any air conditioning. So it's in my hot house. Anyways, there's no more complaining about that. But you know, seven years ago I decided to make a change in my life. I was, my health was deteriorating. I got to the hospital a few times, had a few surgeries for lots of different reasons because of my lifestyle and I had two young daughters and a wife and I thought, "I want to be here for them when they grow up. I want to see them grow up. I don't want to leave my wife alone with these kids." And so I decided to make a change.

You know, with drastic change, because it's been a drastic change over the last seven years, I've had lots of interesting conversations. People come up and say lots of different kinds of things, which is really, some people very nice, you know, say, you know, just they're proud of me and I really appreciate it. If you've done that, I really appreciate that and it's very encouraging. But by far, the most interactions I've had are with men who come up to me sheepishly and they just say, "Listen, don't take this the wrong way, but man, you look really good, man." And they go on about it. I'm like, "Okay." I don't know, it's just really funny. I was at a men's retreat one time, like, "Whoa, it was like the whole weekend." And I'm like, "Okay, guys, relax."

But, you know, I used to feel stuck. Most of my life, I felt stuck. I always thought I was going to be this bigger guy with all these health problems. I had resigned myself. Honestly, I remember one time thinking, "I'm, you know, I'm probably not going to live as long as, like, other people." Those are the thoughts I started to have because I thought, "This is who I am." After trying and failing so many times to make changes before, I thought, "This is it." But, you know, my favorite conversation, you know, interactions I have are with people who feel that same way, who feel stuck. Maybe something similar with, like, health, but with other things, with maybe a past mistake in their lives or something they feel like they've been, you know, tagged with. "This is who I am. I'm defined by this thing or this mistake or whatever it is."

But the thing I've learned and I want us to learn today is this, is where you are is not who you are. That means if, you know, I mean, if I can change, anyone can change. And that's what Jesus is talking about today in his parable. He's talking about change. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 13 if you have a Bible. The whole scripture is also printed on your bulletin if you'd like or your notes. There's a little context at this point. Jesus is, like, fully in his ministry. He's traveling. He's preaching. Just a few chapters before, he gave his very famous sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 and he's picked his disciples and now crowds are following him. People who love him, people who are interested, people who don't like him.

And so one morning he is surrounded by this huge crowd of people. So he jumps in a boat, gets, he pushes offshore a little bit into the, you know, lake of Galilee, the Sea of Galilee, and he does that because it's sort of like this natural amphitheater. It sits in a valley and so he needed to speak to all these people on the shore. So he decided to go out and speak to them and it's at this moment we pick up the story in verse 3. It says this, "Then he told them many things in parables, saying, 'A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil where it produced a crop 160 or 30 times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.'" And he ends his parable.

So the people are like, "Okay." So they, you know, this parable, it makes sense like what he's talking about. There's a sower, there's seed, there's soil, plants grow or don't grow, and there's birds. Like we get all the things that are happening. But what is his point? And that's kind of what people were thinking at the time. He ends and they're like, "Okay. What? What does that mean? What does that mean for us?" I mean they remember that Sermon on the Mount. Like remember, you were, you would say stuff like, "Oh blessed are the peacemakers and blessed are the meek," or, "You should forgive each other." You were a little more explicit. Like, what's up with the farmer and the seeds and the birds? Like, I don't get it.

Even his closest friends, his disciples, did not get it. They asked Jesus like, "What does this mean?" And in this account in Matthew it says, "The disciples came to him and asked, 'Why do you speak to the people in parables?'" They're like, "If we don't get it, how do you think they're gonna get it? We're with you all the time and we don't know what you're talking about." And I wonder, you know, the disciples are his entourage kind of. You know, he walks around, he there with him all the time, and they're probably like giving him advice, you know, like as his entourage, like they're in a new city. "Oh hey, I heard this place has really good pita and we should go here." They're like, you know, "I don't know, maybe not." But I'm thinking, you know, he has this huge crowd, he puts his boat back to talk to all these people, and he tells them like this random story, and they're like, "Oh, can you stick to the hits?"

I think they're here to hear like the popular songs, or the popular ones, not the new material with this farmer stuff. How about the "Serve it on the Mount?" That went really well. Do you want to just do that one again? And then Jesus turns to his disciples, and so this is a conversation now he has with them, assuming they're in the boat with him. Verse 11, it says, "He replied, 'Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables, though seeing they do not see, though hearing, they do not hear or understand.'"

Jesus takes a moment, and he takes a break from this parable, and he turns to his disciples to explain to them why he's using parables. This is sort of like the beginning of all these parables we're gonna read in the Gospels, and he's like, "Okay, check this out. This is what I'm doing." He's saying, "I'm making it hard for people to understand on purpose. Everyone isn't supposed to get this right away." What? Why? If you're here last week, Mark kicked off our series, and it was a great sermon. If you haven't heard it, really encourage you. Go to TLC.org to listen to that or on our app, but he mentioned, we learned what Jesus's core message was in his ministry on earth, all through the Gospels.

His core message was the kingdom of God, that the kingdom of God is coming, and the kingdom of God is here, that through him he was bringing the kingdom of God, and that God was making all things new, and would do that eventually through the death and the resurrection of Jesus, and one day with his return. Now, the kingdom of God wasn't a new concept to Israel. The kingdom of God coming, that's something they have been talking about and hearing for years and years and years. All throughout the Old Testament scriptures, they've been taught to it by priests, in conversations. I imagine bedtime stories full of the kingdom of God. Little David, you know, tucking him in. David, one day, God is going to come and bring his kingdom and establish it here on earth, and you know the occupiers, this evil nation that is ruling us, God is gonna come and kick their butts, and gonna kick them out, and we're gonna be free. Good night. Like every night, that's what they talked about. It was the hope they had.

All those years of captivity and trial and struggle and slavery, what they held on to was God was gonna come and establish his kingdom, and so Jesus is bringing this message, but the message in and of itself confuses them, because it is not the kingdom they were expecting. Jesus didn't show up as the superhero they thought he was going to be. The Messiah, the Savior they had been waiting for. Jesus didn't show up that way. He wasn't gathering an army going out into the wilderness and training them to overtake Rome, and so they're already like, he seems like he might be the Messiah, but this is confusing, and so they're already puzzled, and he now teaches them in parables to confuse them even more.

I was listening to the Bible Project podcast, which by the way, if you've never heard of the Bible Project, I encourage you it is a great resource. Possibly the greatest biblical resource ever. It is just if you are a new Christian, or a new Christian, a mature Christian, whatever spectrum you are, it is a great resource, and I want to give them credit for this part. They had a conversation, and we're talking about this parable in this moment, and they were talking about something that I never really thought about, but when you read the Gospels, two reasons emerge for why Jesus uses parables that are confusing. Because sometimes I'm like, Jesus, can you just say it to them? Somebody will ask him a question, God, how do I do this? And he tells them this like story, and they're like, what is he talking about? And sometimes I'm like, Jesus, just say it. I'm gonna die. Believe in me. But there's a reason he uses parables.

The first reason is this, is that he wants to make people think for themselves. Jesus uses these parables so that people have to think. They have to examine. One of the reasons he does that is because he's sifting his audience. There's a separation that begins to happen. There are people who are there because they really want to follow him, and they want to listen and hear what he has to say. And so when he shares these parables, they're drawn in, and they start to think. They start to examine. They look inside of themselves. It causes them to take ownership of what they believe. And then you have this other crowd of people who are there, and they don't like Jesus, and their minds are already made up. You know, they think Jesus is crazy. Let me see what he has to say. Farmer, seed, birds. Yeah, see? He's crazy. It makes him more convinced. And he's so he's sifting these groups, partly because of the second reason, is Jesus is buying time.

This is what I mean by that. You know, Jesus, this, the kingdom project that he's beginning, that, you know, this message of the kingdom of God coming, part of that is him dying on the cross. And Jesus knew that was coming. But have you ever thought I used to think, like, why did Jesus die when he died? Why when he was 33? Why not when he was 25 or 28? I mean, why that time? What was going on? What, why did he wait? Why not when he started his ministry, die on the cross? And let's get it, let's go. Come on. Two things needed to happen before his crucifixion. The first thing is that somebody will had to want to kill him. It did, it doesn't work if he just climbs up on a cross and dies. He had to go die if he accused and innocently die on the cross. So there needed to be people to accuse him and want to kill him. And so he had to get these Pharisees to get angry or angry or about what he's saying and that he needed the Roman government to have some sort of reason to be able to execute him in, you know, in this like legal way.

And we know they have their, we know the reasons they have now, like later, as we've read the Bible and if you don't, the Pharisees, they heard Jesus eventually, they realized what he was saying is that he thinks and he is saying out loud to all these people that he is God and that is blasphemy. He needs to die. Not only that, he's gathering all these followers, these crowds are following him, they're cheering him on. He comes into Jerusalem and thousands, I don't know how many people, but a lot of people are shouting and waving these palm branches and the Roman government is like, "Uh-oh, here's another revolutionary trying to take over." But Jesus needed to buy himself time because not only do these people need to get mad, not only do they need a reason for him to get crucified, but he needed to gather followers and disciples.

There needs to be people that are on the ground for after Jesus dies and is resurrected and ascends into heaven and isn't here anymore, somebody has to be left to continue to spread the kingdom of God, right? So he needs disciples and he needs followers, people who would share and live out the kingdom of God, the gospel. And so he tells his disciples that he is revealing to them the secrets. They're gonna carry the torch, they're gonna be the ones who under risk of death will take the gospel to the ends of the earth. And so he reveals to them the secrets of the kingdom. You know, sometimes when we, some of us, when we read the Bible and we see secrets, we're like, "Oh, what is this?" You know, like it's some special mystical thing. That's kind of what comes to our mind.

The Greek word for secret here is the word "mysterion." Can you guess the word we get from "mysterion"? Mystery. Some versions it says mystery. Here's the definition. Generally, mysteries, religious secrets confided only to the initiated. Sometimes when we see the word secret in the Bible, we start to think of like, you know, codes or something like, "When is Jesus, when is his exact arrival going to be here?" And there's many people who have done that. I remember I was a Christian in 1998. Jesus was supposed to come and we're like, "Okay, here he comes. He didn't come." And then I recently, here some guy said, so everybody's like, "Oh, the secrets are trying to find that that's not what this is talking about." I want you to think of it this way. And he's talking about these parables and I'm gonna reveal to you the secret of this parable. You think of this parable as a riddle. Here's this riddle with a truth inside. I'm gonna reveal to you the secret. You're in on the riddle.

Have you ever told somebody a riddle and you know the answer? And they're just like, "Oh, I can't get it." You know? Like my kids love to come and bring me riddles to like try to trip me up, but I know every riddle. So I have to pretend, "Oh, I don't know how the father is not the surgeon or whatever the riddle is, you know, that they have." But what Jesus is saying is, "I'm telling you the truth. I'm telling you what's happening. I'm revealing to you the secrets because you need to know. You need to be ready for when I die to continue the work of the kingdom." And so he explains the parable to the disciples. In verse 18, "Listen to what the parable of the sower means." When anyone hears the message about the kingdom of God, now we're back to the parable, and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.

The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy, but since they have no root, they lost only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding 160 or 30 times what was sown. Jesus reveals to them what this parable is about, and it's this. It's the response to his message.

He's telling the disciples there are four responses I'm receiving to this message that I have been receiving and that I will receive and that we're all gonna be ways that we respond. I mean the crowd, the literal crowd that is there, he's saying there are these types of people out here right now hearing what I have to say. He starts with the path. The path is, you know, if you have a bed where you're planting stuff, next to it is where the farmer would walk and he would bring his, you know, his animals, his tools, and as they walk over this path over and over, which is just dirt, you know, just soil, but they walk over and over and over, what happens is it gets compacted and it becomes very hard and dense. And this represents the people who have their minds made up like the Pharisees.

They had their way, right? The Pharisees, they had been making their own path over and over and they added rules and rules and rules that they would follow. They made their own way. They had their own idea of what the kingdom of God is supposed to look like and now here's Jesus telling them a new way, a new path, a new kingdom trying to sow a seed of this kingdom of God into their hearts and they didn't want to hear it. They couldn't hear it. And so the message just bounces off and it's taken away by the birds. Then there's the rocks. This is the area next to the path where rocks kind of fall into the soil and what happens is there's this layer of rock and there's this shallow layer of soil above the rock and what the rock does is it traps the moisture up above the rocks. So now you have this soil, this shallow soil that's full of water.

So when the seed falls in it, there is a lot of stuff for the seed, you know, to feed the seed and so it sprouts up really quick. Roots come out but they can't go deep because it's stopped by the rock. The sun rises and then the water, the moisture inside of that topsoil, it evaporates and the plants, they want water so they try to get down to the deeper soil where there is moisture but the rocks block the roots. So because those roots are shallow in this now dry soil, they wither and they fall away. These are the crowds. These are people who are following Jesus but they're following Jesus for some maybe more superficial reasons because Jesus has something they might want or they like. Hey, that's the guy who can turn water into wine. So they're just walking around with jugs of water, you know, just in case. That's the guy who can heal people. That guy healed the daughter of a guy whose daughter was way far away.

He has something that I want but then when trials hit, when troubles come, when it seems like those blessings aren't there, then they check out. They can't take it. They can't take the heat. They haven't fully understood the message of the kingdom of what Jesus is talking about. All they see is what he has to give them but not the truth that he gives them which is things like, you know, "Though you have trouble in this world, I have overcome it. I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. That seed hasn't sunk in." So when life beats down on them, they wither and they fall away. Then there are the thorns or the weeds. These followers, they like Jesus. They want to follow after him. They like what he has to say. They're all for this new kingdom until it upsets their priorities, their allegiances, who and what they worship.

For example, the rich young ruler, there's in the Gospels, you read about this man who comes to Jesus and says, "What does it take to be saved?" And Jesus looks at him knowing this guy, this rich guy, this rich young ruler, and he says, "Sell all your possessions and follow me." And the rich young ruler turns and is like, "Okay, you can't do that." No. Now when you read that, you might think of Jesus as like anti-wealth or something. The point isn't that Jesus says, you know, Jesus is not making the point that you can't have wealth or riches or whatever. What he is saying is you can't have anything that replaces God, aka an idol. Is there something in your life that takes much more priority over God? Those are the weeds or the thorns that choke the seed, that suck away the nutrients that the seed needs and that these plants don't bear any fruit.

Then there's the good soil. Good soil is good soil. You plant it, trees grow or plants grow, and they bear fruit, a harvest. This represents people who hear the kingdom of God, they take it in, and they live it out. They bear fruit. There is evidence that this seed that is planted in them has matured. There is evidence, there's fruit, there you can tell that they follow Jesus. Naturally, when you see something like this in the Bible, Jesus talking about these four categories of people, you begin to think, "Where do I fall?" Right? I've heard this parable many times in my life, especially when I was like in youth group as a teenager, most of those messages were like, "You need to feel guilty for where you are. You need to get out of there. Stop. Stop. Don't be the path." You know, they point at you, "Stop being rocky. No more weeds." Thorns. Santa Cruz saying, "No more weeds, something different."

But what they meant is, "No more other allegiances." And maybe like me, you begin to feel identified by the soil you think sounds like where you're at on your journey of faith. I'm always gonna be a path. I'm always gonna be the rocky soil. I'm always gonna have those thorns, and you feel stuck. It's how I felt so many times on my health journey. One part of, one major part of my journey has been fitness and exercise, and that's, and I found that through CrossFit here in Santa Cruz, the birthplace of CrossFit. Many people here at the church, I've run into you at the gym, and a lot of fun, but I remember attending my first class, and you walk in, and the people are doing stuff. You're like, "Okay, a pull-up." And the thing, you know, I walked in, people are doing pull-ups, and like, "Well, I'm never gonna do that." You know?

I just flash back to elementary school, hanging on a pull-up bar at school, because the president of the United States said, "We have to have a fitness test in school in front of your friends," and just hanging there dangling my legs, my friends laughing at me. You know, my shirt's all coming up, and I almost cry. I cry a little probably. I definitely cry, okay? It's crying on a pull-up bar. So I'm walking into this CrossFit gym like, "Ugh!" I'm never gonna do that, but eventually, I did. I did pull-up. I can do many pull-ups. There was a rope, you know, to climb. Another, you know, elementary school gym class torture device for young boys. I don't know if you know this. I don't know if they still do this, but back in the day, you go to school, and they're like, "Hey, you see this rope? Climb to the top!" I was like, "How? You climb it!" I was like, "What does that mean?" So I go up there, and I just slide down, and now I have a rope burn in many odd places that I don't want. This is terrible.

So I see this rope. I'm never gonna do that, but eventually, I did. Many other things that I thought I couldn't do that I've done, but there is one thing I'm like, "Okay, I'm healthy. I'm fit." No. That's not happening. I remember it's called, and this movement is called a muscle-up. Now, a muscle-up is where you jump on this pull-up bar, and you do a pull-up, but you continue, and then you push yourself all the way up above the pull-up bar. I'm like, "Okay, nice story." You know? And I've tried many times. I'm like, "Oh, not happening." And I remember, I told my wife, I said, "You know, I'm okay." I had to, like, convince myself, "It's okay. It's okay. I'm just a guy who does CrossFit. Can't do a muscle-up. That's okay. If a muscle-up shows up, that's okay. I'm gonna do something else. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine." I was just like, "That's who I am."

Earlier this year, there was a workout. It had muscle-ups in it. I'm like, "Oh, great." So, I'm gonna let me try. So, I was trying. I failed, and I failed, and then my friend was recording to try to help me, like, see what I could do to help, and then she caught this. All right. Bring up the pull-up bar. I'm at- No, I'm joking. That would have been really cool, huh? I would have brought a pull-up bar out here, and I would have failed at it, and I would have been like, "It's okay to fail at things. Take the pull-up bar." It was a great moment. It's funny. If you watch that video, I get up there, and I'm surprised. I'm like, "Oh my gosh. I'm up here. Oh, I did it." You know? I'd go on to do a few more.

What I realized that I was a crossfitter who hadn't done a pull-up yet. I wasn't a crossfitter who couldn't do a pull-up or would never do a pull-up. It wasn't who I was. It was just where I was. You know what? Those soils that Jesus is talking about, they can be changed. The path can be broken up. Rocks and soil, you can clear them out. Thorns and weeds, pull them. But the difference is this. Changing soil and getting a muscle up is very different. Getting a muscle up took me lots of pain and sweat and literal blood and tears. And isn't that the way so many of us try to achieve righteousness and holiness? I need to be good soil, so I'm gonna just work on it so hard. I'm gonna grit my teeth, and I'm gonna—I need more sweat. I need more blood. I need more tears. I need to make this soil change. And it's just like the Pharisees who thought, "We need to achieve holiness, so let's make more and more and more rules."

But the kingdom of God does not work that way. In God's kingdom, He does the work. He sheds the blood. It's through God's grace that your soil can be changed. Look at what God says in Ezekiel. He says this, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you." "I, God, will remove your heart of what? Stone and give you a heart of flesh." It's God who changes hearts because God does the work, and He did all the work through His death on the cross, His resurrection from the dead, and through the power of the Holy Spirit. God can break that path. God can clear those rocks, and He can pull those weeds, and He can turn your soil into good, fertile soil.

And maybe you want that change, and you ask, "Okay, how do I get—what will happen? So what do I do?" Now, while Jesus does all the hard work of breaking all that up and making that good soil, there are things we can do to prepare our hearts, to prepare the soil. Three things. First is prayer. It's very simple. But I just want to remind us what prayer is. You know, so many of us think of prayer as like, you know, the incantation to make God do stuff, like the spell, you know, to make something happen. Like, if I pray, then God will do something for me. Prayer is not about—isn't about what God needs. God doesn't need our prayers. Prayer is for us. When we pray, we are taking a moment to say, "God, I need you." You know, Jesus says to the crowd after that parable—do you remember what He says? He says, "If you have ears to hear, then hear. Listen. Understand." What He wants us to do is to hear His message.

Examine your heart through this parable. Do the hard work of thinking about it and acknowledge your need for Him. So many times we're so busy talking and we're so busy making our own paths that we don't hear the message that He is sending to us. Prayer is a posture of surrender where we say, "God, have your way." So we pray. The second thing is pain. Becoming a follower of Christ doesn't mean, you know, all the troubles of life get swept away. Jesus even says in this parable, right, you know, the rocky soil. It says, "When the troubles of life come and when you get persecution because of the message of the kingdom, He is promising them later to the disciples." He says, "In this life you will have trouble." That is a promise from Jesus Christ Himself to us. We are going to have problems on this earth.

He is going to make all things new, but we are in this moment waiting for that. And in this moment while we're waiting in this era, while we're on this broken earth with all these broken people everywhere, we're going to experience trouble and pain. And while God doesn't cause our pains, He can redeem them. He can use the pains and the hurts in our lives to soften our soil, to clear out those rocks and pull those weeds. I mean, it is just like plants. You know, researchers have looked at the effect wind has against plants and trees. That plants and trees need wind to beat up against them so that they can grow strong. A Michigan State University article puts it this way. It says, "Wind blowing on a small seedling or a newly emerged spring plant helps the plant create a stronger stem. Research has shown that this is actually beneficial to the plant and that plants that begin growth in the absence of wind tend to fall over or break more easily than those grown in the presence of some wind."

Plants need wind to become strong. God uses the troubles and the pain in our lives to grow us and to prepare our hearts, to prepare that soil, to break up those things in our lives sometimes that we need broken. And finally, there's perseverance. You know, the people that we know and people knew back then that agriculture takes time, right? You plant a seed and it takes time for you to get what that seed has to offer. I don't know if you ever, when I was a kid in science, we planted a seed like in a cup, in a styrofoam cup back in the day. And you know, you'd sit there and you come the next day and you know what happened? Nothing! There's another, it's a dirt, a cup, a dirt of cup, a cup of dirt. And you come the next day, still nothing. And I'm like, this is a prank. But then over time we're like, oh, there's something.

Have you ever saw, like, seen a little piece of, you know, maybe you're in a garden and you just, like, sit there and want to see it grow and it's not happening. You're not going to see it. It takes a long time. And they knew that. It's a slow organic process, plant growth. It's why I think Jesus uses a seed. He doesn't say, you know, the kingdom of God, the message of the kingdom of God is like a hammer. He uses a seed. This vulnerable thing that can get blown away by the wind, that birds can come grab and eat it. But within this seed has the potential to bring life. And that seed, when it gets planted, as he describes, doesn't overtake, you know, it doesn't overtake the path. The seed doesn't fall on the path and it's like, break it. And like, I'm getting in there, you know.

The seed works with the environment that it's put in. It needs good soil. So it takes time for our hearts. It takes prayer, pain, and perseverance. It takes time for that seed to go in and grow and bear fruit. It says it this way in James. It says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters." You remember this verse? "Whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." As we go through life and as we pray and we face life, all that life has to give us. And we persevere, we mature, our hearts become more like that fertile soil.

Then when we hear God's word, when we hear the word, the gospel of the kingdom of heaven come into our hearts, that through Jesus's death and resurrection, that we have redemption and forgiveness, that he puts his spirit, his literal spirit in us when we come to faith to enable us to live this life, when our heart is that way and that seed gets in there and we realize that the Holy Spirit is within us, then we will grow and mature and we will bear fruit. People will see Jesus in you. We all find ourselves in different places and that's okay. We're all on a journey. You ask a person who's been a Christian a long time, a seasoned saint, and you ask them, "Have you ever felt like any of these?" And they'll say yes to all of them.

Our hearts can be in different places here, like these different soils, but I just want you to remember this. Remember where you are is not who you are. Your soil can change, your heart can change. Open your ears and hear what God has to tell you and open your heart and let him do the work. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your love and your grace and your mercy. God, we thank you, Lord, that the path to righteousness and holiness, our path to you, forgiveness, and redemption is not based on our sweat, our blood, and our tears, but God, on the blood of Jesus. We thank you for your grace.

We thank you that through your death, through your resurrection, you broke the power of death and sin, and that when we come to faith in you, when we put our trust in you, God, you fill us with your spirit and you empower us and enable us to live this life you have called us to. So God, we are so grateful to you for that. So I pray right now for the people listening to my words, to these words right now in this room or online, that God, wherever people might feel they are, that they would know that that's not who they are. That God, you not only redeem us and save us, but God, you change us. You make us more and more like you and you do that as we surrender ourselves, as we go through all the different things that we go through as humans on this earth, as Christians on this earth. And as we persevere and as we hold on to you, our hope, our salvation, God, you grow us and you change our hearts. And so God, I pray that that would happen in all of our hearts, no matter where we feel like we're at. We're just so grateful to you again for your love. In Jesus name. Amen.