Hey. Good morning. If you have a Bible with you, open with me to
Matthew chapter 13. You can open up or unlock your device and
meet me there. We'll also have the words of Scripture on screen.
We're going to read through Matthew 13:1 through 23. We read
Matthew 13. That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat
beside the sea, and great crowds gathered about him. So that
he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood on
the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying,
a sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seeds fell along
the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell
on rocky ground where they did not have much soil, and immediately
they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun
rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered
away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and
choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain,
some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. He who has ears, let him
hear. Then the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak
to them in parables? And he answered them to you it has been
given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. But to them
it has not been given. For for to the one who has more will be given,
and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even
what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them
in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they
do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case
the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says, you will indeed
hear, but never understand, and you will indeed see, but never
perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their
ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest
they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and
understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.
But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears, for they
hear. For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
long to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what
you hear and did not hear it. Here then, the parable of the Sower.
When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand
it, the evil One comes and snatches away what has been sown
in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. And as for what
was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and
immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself,
but endures for a while. And when tribulation or persecution arises,
he, on account of the Word, immediately he falls away. As for
what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the Word.
But the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke
the word, and it proves unfruitful as what was sown on good
soil. This is the one who hears the Word and understands it.
He indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold,
in another, 60, and in another 30. You pray with me in response
to the word of God. King Jesus, we turn now to your Word.
We know that you are the Word. Lord, we need more of you. Holy Spirit,
would you be present in this place? Would you give us ears to
hear, open our hearts and souls to receive and be changed by
the Gospel? King Jesus, all scripture points to you. And we read
now your very words, the words of the King of the Universe preserved
for us 2000 years later. Would you be as clear in the teaching of
your Word today as you were when you spoke these words 2000 years
ago? King Jesus, I have nothing to offer your people other
than you. So would you be present in this time? Take control
of this space. Guide us to you that, Lord, we could be fruitful
as you have called us to be. We give this to you and pray these
things in Jesus name. Amen. Matthew 7. You guys probably heard
this a few weeks ago. Jesus said this. He said so. Every healthy
tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. Every
tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into
the fire. And thus you will recognize them by their fruit. By
the way, if some scripture's not on screen, that's my fault, not
their fault. Today I like to go all over the place. I was thinking
about it as I got ready to teach today and it's good to be back
with you. Like Jason said, my name is Charlie Houck. I have served
as pastor and church planter of Mesa Church in San Diego, California
for the last five years. See, some folks who were just there with
me last week, which is awesome. And it's always good to
be back with you every summer as I have the honor of delivering
God's word. And honor I'm not worthy of. And I was thinking about
my experience here last year. See, I was here before you a year
ago teaching and I preached a sermon. And honestly, it was a difficult
message for me to preach. Cause I was a time in my life when
I was wrestling with some big Questions, like truthfully big questions
about fruitfulness. I'd been in San Diego for four years and I
would kind of say the party line that every church planner says,
like, hey, it's not about numbers, it's not about success,
it's about faithfulness. But the truth is I was living a life
as a pastor and church planter that, that felt a lot less successful
than what I had imagined. We're struggling financially, struggling
in my family, my family was hurting. Like, we just didn't have
a lot of close friendships in our church. And outside of our church,
I saw my kids struggle from loneliness. Like it was this weird
thing where I have a 7 year old son and no matter what happens,
our church seems to never have seven year olds. We've got middle
schoolers and toddlers and he's just like left alone in the
church. And I was, I was struggling with that and I was looking
at my life and I was remembering the words of Jesus about
fruitfulness. And I was just feeling like I wasn't fruitful. And
there were things I was doing to try and be fruitful. I was playing
basketball like four days a week, trying to meet all these guys,
texting people, inviting people to church. And like nothing
was working. And there were good things that God would do. God
was growing our family. In fact, I have a picture of our family.
It may be the same one I shared last year. We don't have it
updated this year. But some of you know, like, God has blessed our
family and Sandy. We've been fruitful and multiplied. We've had
two beautiful babies. Our kids are seven, three and two now. God
grew my marriage to my lovely wife Audrey. She's in the picture,
but she looks better in person too. She's right here in person if
you want to see her afterwards. Like, not that she looks
bad in the photo. I realize that could be taken that way. So
I'm putting my foot in my mouth. So it happens when I go a
little off script. But I was struggling with these things and
feeling like, where is the fruit and the fruit in my life that
I could see? It almost felt like I was trying to manufacture
it. The thing about manufactured fruit is it tastes really
bitter. And if you don't believe me, go eat the fake apple
on your grandma's countertop. Fake fruit's no good. I was asking
all of these questions and wrestling with them, and through
all of this, there was kind of this underlying question that was
just always out there. And it's one that I've truthfully wrestled
with for the last year. And God began to answer some of my questions
about fruitfulness. By the way, like, even though through basketball
I'd only made one friend, we'll call him Matthew. Cause I wasn't
going to. I didn't tell him I was going to share a story, but I'd
kind of built a little bit of a relationship with Matthew and done
some ministry to him. And he's in a blended family, his wife was
in the Navy. And like he would help us with our landscaping, I would
give him some advice. And God showed me that part of the fruitfulness
was in my family and I had adult siblings who were getting saved.
And then part of the fruitfulness was in receiving missions
teams and we would receive high schoolers and college students
from field of church and partner with even college students
from Resonate church. And there were all these little answers
to the fruitfulness question as I sought God and memorized John
15 and looked to him. But even in that, there was still one question
I'd never received an answer to. And it's one that I believe Jesus
has given the answer to today through this passage. And it's simply
this. I've asked this question, if Jesus. Sorry, if the
gospel is true and Jesus is awesome, then how could the Christian
life ever be miserable? If the gospel is true and Jesus is awesome,
how could the Christian life ever be miserable? Because there
were times in my walk, there were times in San Diego where I found
myself dealing with deep misery. Now, don't hear me say the
wrong thing here. I understand some of you are already thinking
of the teachings of Paul and even of Jesus and the life of Jesus,
that the Christian life can be sorrowful. It can be full of pain
and loss and deep, deep sorrow. But in all of those things,
we can experience joy in Jesus. Yet at least in my life, I
don't believe joy and misery can exist in the same heart. And
so I was asking this question, lord, why is this so hard? Why am
I so miserable? And Lord, where is the fruit? And Jesus chose
this week to at least in part answer this question from Matthew
13. And so what he has shared with me and blessed me with, I would
like now to share with you. So let's look to Matthew 13. Now, it
began as many sections of Matthew begin with Jesus beginning
to teach you. Read in Matthew 13 that the same day Jesus went out
of the house and sat beside the sea, and great crowds gathered
about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down and the whole
crowd stood on the beach and and he told them many things in parables.
So as is the case up to this point in Scripture, often in Matthew
we're seeing that Jesus draws a crowd. We've seen him do a lot
of teachings to these crowds. We've already had the Sermon on the
Mount and these great teachings, these really plain teachings
about the kingdom. We've seen in these last few chapters him begin
to grow and scale his ministry, sending the disciples out
on missionary preaching journeys, confronting wrong teachings
and declaring the kingdom. And then we saw last week in Matthew
chapter 12, kind of wrapping that up, that he's reached a point
in his ministry where now there's also resistance and there's
questions being raised and there's people to whom the gospel
has been preached clearly who are rejecting it. And there's questions
even from people like John the Baptist and from his parents and
from his disciples. And so in response to these questions and in
response to the response of the people of Israel to his teachings,
Jesus is now going to shift gears and begin to teach through
these stories called parables. Now, David Platt, much smarter pastor
than I, he's got a simple definition for a parable. A parable,
according to Platt, is a practical story, often framed as
a simile. So saying like, or as that illustrates spiritual truth.
A practical story that illustrates spiritual truth. You're
gonna see throughout this chapter, Jesus is gonna share several
stories. And what you gotta understand is that for their original
audience, so the first century listener is these were very practical,
hands on, they related to things that they do every day. So
we're going to read, we just read a parable of a sower, of someone
literally planting seeds that are hopefully going to grow into
grain and grow into crops. This is like if he were to say to
you, hey, a man went out to go to Target. This was something these
people did in everyday life. They were practical. We should always
try to listen from the hearer's perspective and look for
the main idea or main ideas that and any parable that we study.
And what's interesting is that this first parable we're gonna see
about today is actually kind of a parable about parables. And
it's explain why Jesus is doing this. And so instead of rereading
that first section of the parable, now what I want to do is
jump down to verse 10 and kind of hear Jesus's explanation of why
he's going to do this. So his disciples in verse 10, they've heard
him teach in a parable, and they say, why do you speak to them
in parables. Why are you using these stories? Jesus answers to you.
To his disciples, it has been given to know the secrets of the
kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. Remember,
friends, if you're here and you follow Jesus, if you know the
secrets of the kingdom of heaven, if you've received the gospel,
you should ask that question, like, how did you get so lucky? Like
what? How do you know Jesus has given them to you? We can never
deserve to know this. The disciples didn't deserve to know
the secrets of the kingdom or to understand Jesus. Yet in his great
graciousness, he chose to open their hearts to him. He says, you
have been given to know these secrets. Verse 12. For to the one
who has more will be given, and he will have an abundance. From
the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is
kind of a microcosm or a statement of the future when it comes
to the kingdom. If you have received the kingdom, you're going
to get more of the kingdom. You're going to have the kingdom
for all of eternity with Jesus in a world made right, where everything
wrong has become untrue. But if you have not received the kingdom,
even the very words of the kingdom and the possibility of the
kingdom will be taken away from you. 13 this is why I speak
to them in parables. Because seeing they do not see and hearing
they do not hear. These people have heard Jesus clearly declare
the truth, and yet they didn't get it, nor do they understand. Indeed,
in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled. And this was
a statement in Isaiah of God's coming judgment. He said, you will
indeed hear, but never understand, and you will indeed see,
but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull and
with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they
have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with
their ears and understand with their heart and turn. And I would
heal them. Speaking to the disciples, speaking to those of us
who are in the kingdom. But blessed are your eyes for they see,
and your ears, for they hear. For truly I say to you, many prophets
and righteous people long to see what you see and do not see it,
and. And to hear what you hear and do not hear it. Friends, I know
if you're part of this church, you may love what is happening in
this church, and I do. But even in addition to that, there are
people who long to see what God is doing in churches, like Fielder
Church, who long to see the kingdom come. And people of different
cultures Gathered together at the throne, being able to worship
freely. Jesus, like people, have longed for this. And if we are
in the kingdom, we have received it. And so Jesus gives us
kind of these paradoxical answer for why he's teaching in parables
so that those who have received and who have understand
they're going to get deeper truth. So today, if you're here and
you've received Jesus, this parable should take you into a deeper
understanding of a spiritual truth. But if you have rejected him
in hearing a parable, you run the risk of ending up even further
away because you have hardened yourself to Jesus and he has no responsibility
to soften you, even though, as you're going to see, he's always
willing to. So let's get back to that parable. The parable that
Jesus taught was really simple. He said, a sower went out
to sow. So this is someone who's going to plant crops. For most
of human history, most people ate what they planted. So the audience
listening, they know what it is to plant grain. In fact, in all
of human history, civilization kind of started when people began
planting crops. And it's only very recently that most of us have
eaten crops that others have planted. So a sower, a planter, went
out to plant grain, verse 4. And as he sowed, some seeds fell
along the path. Now this path, in their terms, they really had two
kinds of roads, hard packed dirt and Roman roads. They're probably
picturing his current audience, a hard packed dirt road.
You can imagine dirt that has been walked over for hundreds or
even thousands of years by generations of people to where that
dirt is packed as hard as concrete. This is like he's saying,
hey, some of these seeds fell in the middle of i20. And so they
didn't get into the ground. In fact, the birds came and devoured
them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where there wasn't much
soil, there's no depth. So immediately they sprang up. Since
they had no depth of soil, but the sun rose and they were scorched.
And since they had no root, they withered away. So whatever plant
grew from that seed, it is now dead. Now, other seeds fell among
thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell
on good soil and produce grain, some a hundredfold, some 60,
some 30. He who has ears, let him hear. Now what follows, that
is the explanation we just read of why Jesus is teaching in
parables. And so in case it's not clear to you in a moment, when
Jesus explains this parable, it's going to Be very obvious that
Jesus in this story, he is the sower. He is the one planting the
truth. He is the one sharing the good news of his kingdom, declaring
it far and wide, casting seed, in fact, in a way that's kind of
illogical. I like, why would you waste valuable grain on a path
where it's not gonna grow? Jesus is casting his gospel far and
wide, but the problem is not everyone's heart is ready to receive
it and be fruitful. Look down at verse 18. When Jesus explains
it. He says, hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone
hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil
one comes and snatches away what has been sown. And this is what
was sown along the path. Now, maybe you've had friends, or maybe
this is you. Maybe you've known someone who, when they receive
words of the kingdom, it's like you're speaking to a brick wall.
They might have struggles in their life. If you believe in Jesus,
you can believe they have a need for his gospel, but no matter
how much you share it, it's like you're speaking to a wall or
literally speaking to a road, and it's not responding at all. And
the gospel literally bounces off and they just forget about it.
And it's amazing. And I've seen God soften these people. And
what's amazing is even after they're softened years later and
they receive Christ, they still don't remember about all the
things they learned about Christ before because it just bounced
off. Because in their hardened state, their heart wasn't ready to
receive the seed of the gospel. And so they go on living
their hardened life, headed towards destruction. Read in verse
20 that as for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one
who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.
So they receive the gospel, they're excited. They're all in for
Jesus. They're fired up. Maybe they're volunteering everywhere.
Yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. And
when the tribulation or persecution. Remember he told in
the story that the sun came up and burned away the plant. When tribulation
or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately
he falls away. The gospel hadn't taken root, hadn't really
changed their heart. And so when the sun came up and when it
became difficult to follow Jesus, when following Jesus wasn't
just something exciting that happened at a camp or happened on
a Sunday morning or something, they wanted to be like because they
loved the community and they loved the teaching when it actually
began to cost them something, they didn't have the roots to pay
that price. And so the seed of the gospel withered in their life,
and they went back to their way of life before Jesus had ever
sown his truth. And then there's the third soil. This is an
interesting one. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the
one who hears the word. But the cares of the world and the deceitfulness
of riches choke the word and it proves unfruitful. So in this
story, and people always ask, I was talking with Jason about this
this morning, people always ask, like in this part of the story,
for this soil, the thorny soil, like, are these people Christians?
Because it doesn't seem super clear, like, they've received the
gospel. And apparently whatever. Whatever plant of the gospel
is growing in the soul of their heart, it has enough roots
that. That it exists, but it's being choked and being suffocated,
and there's. There's cares of the world and deceitfulness of riches,
literally, like, like idols and love for money and love for other
things that are choking out the work of the gospel. So, so however
much of the gospel is there, it is not multiplying. And you can
find yourself, as I was wondering, Jesus, where is the fruit?
And then we have the fourth soil, what everyone hopefully understands
the soil of our heart, what we desire to be. Jesus says, as for
what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word
and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields in one case
a hundredfold, in another, 60 and another 30. Reading through the
New Testament all the time, Jesus talks about fruit is part of
the reason I had kind of this, this personal crisis last year was
asking all these questions, because when you read through the
New Testament, it becomes clear, like, Jesus actually, he really
says, if you abide in him, that if. If the gospel has found
root in your heart, like you are going to bear fruit. And with
fruit comes joy, and with fruit comes this, this, this prosperity
and multiplying in the kingdom, not prosperity, by earthly
terms of prosperity and eternity and seeing the gospel move.
And so I'm left with this question, Jesus, if all of this is
true and the Gospel is true, and you're good and you're awesome,
then why do I often feel miserable and fruitless? And in answer
to that question, this week, Jesus brought me to verse 22 into
the account of what it's like when the seed of the kingdom finds
roots and grows in a heart that is full of thorns. See, I think
when we ask the question, how could we be miserable while pursuing
Jesus? How could we be miserable while going to church?
How could we ever have received the gospel yet still be
miserable? The answer, it's not Jesus. The answer is that there
are other things in our heart that are competing with and fighting
with and choking the root of the gospel. And we're caught in misery
in between. Elsewhere in Matthew, Jesus, talking about this,
said, no man can serve two masters, for you will hate one and
love the other. That you can't serve both God and money. You'll
be devoted to one and love the other. And the problem for us, and
the problem for me all too often is that we've got a love hate
relationship with our thorns. And there are things in our heart
where our heart loves Jesus, yet our actions say we love our thorns.
And then we might hate the thorns in our life and hate the things
that are choking out the gospel, yet our actions say we actually
hate Jesus and his kingdom because we're pursuing all sorts
of things that choke out the very real work that Jesus wants to
do in our heart. In fact, check this out. This word for choke.
When Jesus says that the soil with thorns, that the thorns are
choking out the seed of the gospel, it's the same Greek word
that's used elsewhere for things like suffocate. In fact, there's
a story in scripture where Jesus is so surrounded by a crowd,
it's like a crowd crush. And he's so surrounded by people that
he can't even breathe. He's beginning to get suffocated. Thorns
choke out the gospel, where we can spend our life, our life as a
suffocated Christian, wondering how we could know Jesus
and still be miserable. Like, when's the last time you experienced
choking or suffocation? Like, you really understood that? I was
thinking about it this week. So I do CrossFit. I'm not gonna talk
much about that, which I know breaks the rules of CrossFit, but
I do CrossFit. And part of working out in CrossFit gyms is that
it is inherently competitive. In fact, every week there's a leaderboard,
and you can see every day, leaderboard, you can see how you
performed in relation to the other hundreds of people that go
to your gym. And I know what you're thinking, that's dangerous
for my pride. I'll tell you two things. Number one, I very rarely
enter the top of that leaderboard. And number two, Jesus
has not yet convicted me about that area. Of pride. So back off
and let Jesus handle it. But I've got this little brother, and
he goes to cross it with me, and I say, little brother, actually,
you talk about pride. When we started CrossFit, he was 50 pounds
heavier than me. Now he's 50 pounds lighter than me. So that's
done wonders for my pride. But he's a similar height to me, and
so there's certain workouts that he'll see, and he'll say, man,
this is made for us. So he texts me a couple weeks ago. He's
like, hey, I know we don't usually go to class together, but
today I want to go do this partner workout with you because
I think you and I can win. Like, we can beat the entire gym.
So I show up with him, and the workout seemed really simple. But
put simply, we basically had to take turns rowing on a rower for,
like, 20 minutes. And every so often, we have to go outside and
walk 50 meters each. And so I'm looking at this workout, okay,
we're going to kill ourselves on the rower, and then we get a nice
outside walk to catch our breath. But there's one catch. While
we were walking outside, we had to carry a sandbag. And turns
out that sandbag, for our age and for our gender, was 150 pounds.
So I did the first section of this workout. Several minutes go
by. I get outside, I go and I go to pick up this sandbag, and I
had to hold it this way. Someone asked me that in the first
service. They said, hey, why didn't you hold it in an easier way?
I said, no, they made us hold it this way. They wanted us to suffer.
And so I pick up the sandbag, and I'm starting to walk. And I kid
you not, the first few feet that I walk, I started to see stars,
and I started to, like, get dizzy and lose my balance. And it
became a struggle just to walk 50 meters carrying the sandbag. And
then with every round, it got more and more difficult until finally
the last round, we're finishing the workout. My younger
brother's been carrying me through this thing. I'm, like, about
to black out, and I get halfway through, and I literally
could not walk 50 meters. I had to drop the sandbag and just
sit there and catch my breath. I have never been so close to losing
my lunch in the gym. And what's so amazing, as I looked at
this workout and I thought, man, the rowings, the hard part.
The walking's the easy part. And yet, when I was suffocating with
that weight on my chest. The walking became the hard part. See,
I think for so many of us, we might have met Jesus. The gospel
might have some root in our heart, but we've got these thorns,
and they're choking out the kingdom in our heart and in our life.
And because of these thorns and the suffocation, the very basics
of the Christian walk becomes the hard part. Because Jesus has
a competitor in our soul, in our spirit, and in our heart. And
we find ourselves miserable and suffering and choking our way
through the Christian life, wondering, Jesus, why can I not be
more fruitful? How could my heart become good soil? You know,
I'm a really logical guy. I like to give checklists. I give my
church way too many checklists. It's like a Pharisee,
right? So I was thinking about this, getting ready to teach today,
and I was struggling with how to teach this. Jason knows this.
Like, I've struggled with even how to deliver this message today.
Because when I present a problem and I present, like, what
it is to be a miserable Christian, I just want to give an
answer to that. Like, hey, do these five things and you can be
happy. Like, 10 steps to never experience misery again. That's a
great sermon. And maybe this one's not as good as that, right?
But, like, I couldn't come up with a checklist. And I'm wrestling,
like, Jesus, okay? I see this truth. I see that we got all these
thorns in our soil, but what do we do about it? And what he's
revealed to me is that, you know what I try to do about it? I
try to pull the thorns out myself. Like, I look at my life and
I see these cares of the world. I see my pride. Like, guys,
I can be up here on stage and exhibit cares of the world because
I care more about how I look on camera or I care more about how
my clip sounds on Facebook and XA than I do when I rightly dividing
the word of God or the deceitfulness of riches. For me,
that I could care more about my family's financial future. The
fact that we don't own a home, the fact that I wonder, like, how
are we gonna afford to raise all these kids in a place like San
Diego? Like, I can be so caught up in these thorns, and I
look at them and I see and I say, okay, I gotta get rid of this.
I gotta deal with this. I gotta get some roundup and get some.
Some clippers and, like, get the thorns out of my heart so that
I could do something for the kingdom. And this is how I approached
my Christian walk. For years I was convinced, like, if I could just
figure out the right habits to clean up my life, that meant then
I could do something for God. Like maybe then I could be a pastor
like Jason, right? And last year, as I'm asking these questions,
Jesus brought me to John 15. And I spent six months with a guy
that I disciple, memorizing John 15 and sitting in that passion.
If you don't know that passage, that's the passage where
Jesus says he is the vine and his father is the vine dresser, that
we just have to abide in him, that whoever abides in me and I in
him, it is he who bears much fruit. For apart from me, therefore
you can do nothing. And I just began doing little things to try
to abide in Jesus, like memorizing John 15, like writing
out scriptures already memorized, like literally just sitting
with Jesus and a cup of coffee saying, jesus, I don't know how to
be fruitful, but would you do something? Would you show me something?
And gradually, little by little over the year, he began to
show fruit in my life. He began to show me the fruit in the
life of my kids. I got the baptized my 7 year old son 2 months
ago. He showed me fruit in my extended family. I have a lot of
adult siblings. Multiple of my siblings now follow Jesus in a way
they did not before my family came to our church in San Diego a
couple of years ago. He showed me fruit and these missions teams
that we host from places like Fielder, and that by investing to
send and high schoolers and college students and young adults,
that he was using that investment to bear fruit in his kingdom
in Texas and around the world. So he's showing me these trickles
of fruit, but I'm still like, okay, God, that's great. But I see
this like 30, 60, 100, like, isn't there more like, how do I let
go of these thorns? In fact, I'll catch myself remembering that
day I carried that sandbag. And maybe this is like you, maybe
you're suffocating today because of thorns that are choking
up your heart. I found myself saying, like, I wish it was as easy
to drop the thorns in my heart as it was to drop that sandbag. And
then I hear Jesus, still small voice, saying, maybe it is the same
God who spoke, same God that spoke through Jesus. Like, Jesus
is God and God the Father spoke through the prophets. And in
Ezekiel, we read this incredible prophecy spoken to his
people at a time when his people are far from Him. When God's
people had hard in their heart, when the people of Israel
had thorny hearts and the truth of the kingdom was nowhere
to be found. We read this in Ezekiel, chapter 36. God speaks to
his people and says, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit
I will put within you and I will remove your heart of stone from
your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. See, I began to dwell
on verses like this. I didn't really change how I went about being
a pastor, but I just said God, like Jesus, I just want to experience
your fruit. And the older I get, the more I realize it's not
about me. I'm not a very impressive pastor. I'm not a very
impressive speaker. I don't actually dress as cool as I think
I dress. I'm not as good, like, I'm not good at anything as
I think I am. But Jesus is great. I said, jesus, would you move?
And little by little, he started to move. I told you, I spent
three years playing basketball. Just like I say, I had
an outreach, like I was meeting people. Nothing came of it.
And then last year, I had made one friend in three years and he
was like, vaguely, he's one of these guys. Like, vaguely, he liked
the idea of God. And he was married to a Navy nurse. And they
had a blended family. Six kids, two teenage sons that were
hers and not his, who he had a lot of difficulty with, and then
four little kids. And gradually over the year, my family
became friends with his family and my kids became friends with his
kids to the point that, like, whenever he would show up to a church
event, which wasn't much, his kids would ask, hey, are we coming
over to your house? And it became this sweet little relationship.
And it became more than that when a couple of months ago, Field
of Church sent a high school team to do a soccer clinic. And so
part of that fruitfulness and these high schools are ministering
to kids in our community. And that week my son had gotten baptized.
And the seven year old daughter of my buddy Matthew comes
and says she wants to get baptized and she wants to follow
Jesus. And so he tries to get her baptized that day. And I say,
hey man, that's awesome. Like, we have a class for this. We want
to talk with you about what it means and how you can be baptized.
And then he comes back a couple weeks later. He's like, yeah,
I don't want her baptized because I've never been. I don't
know about this. Like, should my whole family do it? Or not. Like,
how do we do this? And then we find out this family, this beautiful,
like, sweet military family, is getting unlawfully evicted. And
it just happened that the day they were being unlawfully evicted
or the day they had to move was the same day that Resonate Church
from the Pacific Northwest had asked me if they could serve our
church. And so we got to show up with, like, 30 college students
and move this family across town and their two teenage sons.
My buddy's two teenage stepsons were so impressed with this
and by these college students that they showed up to our youth
group that Friday night. And that Friday night, they got saved.
And then when they asked to get baptized, my buddy Matthew came
to me about baptism, and he got saved. And last Sunday, I got
to see my son's new friends that we prayed for, celebrating death
to life in their family as I baptized the father and both of his
stepsons at the beach with, like, 50 college students from Resonate
and Mesa Church. And. And we're just selling. And I'm seeing,
like, all these different areas where I was trying to manufacture
fruit, and Jesus and his goodness wove it all together and
crafted a story that I could never invent so that someday in my
life, I could see the fruit of the Kingdom go forward 30 fold or
60 fold or a hundredfold. And it wasn't anything that I did. It
was simply abiding in Jesus and allowing him to be the gardener.
See, in so many ways, the parable of the sower is just a parable
of the gospel. Like, we are stuck in our sins. We're stuck in
our hardened soil and our rocks and our thorns, and there's
nothing that can save us. And we don't even have agency. Like,
we cannot become a plant when we're dirt. That's not power that
we have. And yet Jesus does not stay away from us. He draws dirt
near to us, and he comes close to us, and he shares the truth with
us. And he makes good on that truth at the end of Matthew when
he goes to the cross to pay the price for all those sins that
got us so messed up in the first place. Like the sins, both
your sins and others that led you to being hardened. The sins,
both sins you've committed and sins committed against you that led
to you having some rocks in your soil, the sins of your heart
and the sins of others that led to you having these thorns in
your soil suffocating you. And Jesus goes and pays the price for
all of it. And then he comes back and he says, I'm not done because
I've got others I want to share this truth with. I was thinking
of Peter this week. I relate so much to Peter. Issues of pride.
One moment he's swinging a sword, cutting off someone's ear
for Jesus. The next moment, he's denying Jesus three times. Do
you know how Peter came back to Jesus and how his soul became
fruitful? It wasn't anything he did. Jesus drew near to him and
restored him that through his tears, Peter could be made fruitful
friends. I want that for you this morning. I want that for you.
You know, I haven't done much planting in my life. I'm not much
of a gardener. This story is a little foreign for me, but I got
to do just a little bit of it. A couple years ago, we got to put
in this beautiful soccer field at our church. And some of you were
part of that. Some folks from Mesa helped to pay for it. We had
a volunteer team build in. Part of putting in a soccer field
for our community to do, to enjoy was building a retaining wall.
And on top of the retaining wall, there was this little flower
bed. And I had a buddy who's a church planter but used to be a landscaper,
and he helped me plan out this flower bed. He had all these beautiful
plants that smelled nice and looked great and would survive in
the desert in California. But we made one really big mistake. See,
as we got close to finishing the retaining wall, we ran out of
soil. And so we had to reuse the topsoil we had removed from the
grass when we first started constructing the soccer field in
order to finish off this retaining wall. And we planted all
these beautiful lamps. My friend told me. He said, charlie,
I gotta tell you, I saw that soil before it was removed, and it's
full of weeds and it's full of crabgrass. So you can plant whatever
you want on top of this retaining wall. What you're actually
gonna get is weeds and crabgrass. I said, okay, well, can
we change? Like, is there anything we could plant that would
be stronger than the weeds and stronger than the crabgrass? And
he laughed at me, and he said, brother, nothing is stronger than
crabgrass. That's what you're gonna get. And you know what? He
was right. And six months later, all those beautiful plants
were overgrown with crabgrass. We literally had to rip it all out
and take out all the dirt and. And put down new soil and landscaping
paper just to get the garden the way we wanted it to look. And
look, here's why I share that with you. I don't know the state
of your heart this morning. I don't know if you're in here and
you identify with the hardened soil and you're realizing, hey, I've
heard Jesus over and over and over again, but it's never taken
root. Like, is it hopeless for me? Friends, I got to tell you, if
you're asking that question, the answer is no. Because if you're
asking that question, Jesus is speaking to you and drawing you to
something this morning. Drawing you to a decision to allow
him to soften the soil of your heart, that your eternity could be
changed. Maybe you've got rocky soil. Maybe you've been in
and out of church, you've been excited for Jesus, you've been baptized
in the past, and it didn't go the way you wanted it. You fell away.
And you're like, was it ever real? Like, where am I at? Can I
really? Like, I'm embarrassed to come back. And Jesus is saying,
no, I love you so much that I'm gonna come sow that seed of the
gospel again, and I'll come take the rocks out of your heart
so that the roots of my gospel can go deep into you and change you
and give you a purpose in the kingdom. Or maybe you're like I so
often am, and you find yourself even questioning if you
follow Jesus. Cause your heart is so thorny and you find yourself
suffocating and struggling. And just the walking is the hard
part. Because there's so many competing things in your heart. And
you're saying, what do I even do about this? And I'm even afraid.
I'm embarrassed to come forward because I don't want to admit
this because I lead a small group or I preach sermons, I do whatever.
And I just want to tell you, like, Jesus wants you to come lay
it down today. When I asked Jesus why can't letting go of these
thorns be as easy as dropping the sandbag? He gave me an image
that today there would be those in this room that could drop
their thorns at this altar, that could meet with someone to pray
that Jesus would give them a fresh heart, would pull the thorns
out, that they could bear fruit. Friends, I don't know what
your heart is full of when it comes to the seeds in your heart.
Let me tell you, nothing can out compete Jesus. In a moment, I'm
gonna pray. Music's gonna begin. There's gonna be pastors down
front. I wanna encourage you to respond in this moment. If you're
here and you've never before responded to the gospel you've never
received, the kingdom you've rejected. This is a moment you could
choose to lay down your arms and repent and. And receive the kingdom
and have your heart softened and your eternity changed. If you're
one of those who's had a. Had a heart that's rocky or thorny, there's
been cares and concerns of the world that have distracted you from
Jesus. You can come and drop those cares and concerns right here
at the altar. If there's sin in your heart and desire for riches
that you know you're holding onto and you've tried to fix it,
no matter how hard you try, it never goes away. You could let go
of it today. Like, what would it look like if everyone in this
room bore fruit 30, 60, 100 times? It would look like the world
changing. Like I told you, I have nothing more to offer you than
the message of Jesus. But the message is this, that Jesus is enough
and Jesus is greater than whatever is holding your heart captive.
Let's pray and then respond. King Jesus, I thank you for the chance
to share your word. We thank you for the truth of your gospel.
We thank you that you are enough. For those hearts you've softened.
For those of us that you've given us a heart of flesh and taken
away our heart of stone, we thank you, Lord. We rejoice it has
been given to us to know the kingdom. And our earnest desire and
plea is that it will be given to others. That for those in this
room, for those watching online, that for anyone who has not
received your kingdom, that this could be the moment they could
respond in obedience. They could repent of their sins and be
baptized this very day. That their heart could be changed, that
we could see them bear fruit far beyond anything we've seen in
our day and in our life and in our nation and in our churches. So,
Holy Spirit, you have the room. This is your space. Would you
do your kingdom work? Sow your seed, soften our hearts and grow
your kingdom. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. I'll
be down front. I invite you to respond as the Holy Spirit leads.