Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 8:1-21
[ Silence ] Take your Bible out, find the Gospel of Luke. You'll find the outline that is in the bulletin if you like to follow along on the outline. You may think this is a silly little illustration I'm about to use, but I do want to share it with you and I hope you on the other side of it can see the importance of it and hopefully agree with me. I want you to think back to the last big trip you took. Maybe it was a family vacation, maybe it was some sort of mission trip. I'm not talking about like just a weekend trip, but a big trip. A big trip that you had to plan for and you set it out on the calendar way out in the future and you were excited about it and you anticipated that trip and made all sorts of different preparations and you just were so excited about the day it was going to come and then you went on the trip and I hope it was a good trip, whatever trip you're thinking about, I hope you had fun and I hope you remember the joy of a big family vacation or the joy of a mission trip or something like that. But if you are at all like me, there comes a point in every trip where you say or where I say I'm just ready to go home. I'm just ready to be home. I'm tired of living out of this suitcase. I'm tired of living in this hotel room. I'm tired of staring at this beautiful beach. I just want to go back to Odessa, whatever it may be. You just get to that point and you say I'm just ready to get home. And my guess is you've had that experience at some point in your life and what I'm sharing with you right now is that I have that experience on the one hand on vacations but I also have it when it comes to preaching. And here's what I mean. On Sunday mornings most of the time what we do is we pick a book of the Bible and we just plow through it. That's home. Every now and then we take a vacation. We talk about the story of Christmas. We have a four-week series here. We talk about I am a church member. We have a six-week series here. And those series, they require a lot of planning and you've got to think through it and you sort of get excited about it. And yes, these are things I want to share with the church family. But personally, by the time I get to the end of a series I'm just ready to go home. And I know that in a lot of churches it's cool or it's trendy to only preach short little series. We're going to spend three weeks on this, four weeks on this, five weeks on this, six weeks is too long. You lose their attention. We need to keep it short, keep it changing, keep it fresh. And I know that that's a trendy thing. But my fear is if we do that, we have no home. We're like those people. Have you seen them? They just cruise all year long. They don't have a home. They get off one cruise. They get on another cruise. They get off that cruise. They get on another cruise. They don't have any place to plant their feet. That's fine if you're cruising as not fine spiritually. And my hope is that when we do what we're doing this morning, on Sunday mornings, we just begin in chapter 1 verse 1 in a book and we just plow through it to the end that it gives you a place to plant your feet spiritually. And here's the danger. If all I ever preach is a series and another series and another series and another series, you're going to hear all of my favorite Bible passages. I'm going to preach all the stuff I like to preach about or I want to preach about. And when we come to a book, we're going to come to some of my favorites or your favorites, but we're also going to come to some head scratchers. And we're going to come to some that you don't know exactly how to make sense of. And what I'm saying to you is plowing through a book like this, studying a book from beginning to end, listening to God's Word as He revealed it, not just in a snapshot that you pick one verse up here and then you talk about it. But in the flow of the story gives you a place to plant your feet spiritually. And so we're back this morning in the Gospel of Luke, right where we left off. In Luke chapter 8, you will be happy to know that in the last couple of months, the theme verse of Luke has not changed. You do not have to memorize a new verse. It's still Luke 19-10, and it still says, "The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." Everything we read about in the Gospel of Luke falls under that big umbrella, and we're going to see that proves true again this morning. The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. One thing I want to remind you of is that we're here in Luke 8. Luke goes all the way to chapter 24, but already here in 8, and really before 8, the opposition is set against Jesus. His enemies have already decided that they're going to kill Him. And so you can go back and look at Luke 4, 28 and 29. Jesus preaches in Nazareth and the people in His hometown take Him out to the edge of the city, and they're ready to kill Him. And Luke gives us this mysterious verse that says, "He just passed through their midst and went His way." We don't know how that happened, but they were ready to kill Him. You can go back and look at Luke 5, 21, "The Pharisees accused Jesus of blasphemy." And they do that knowing that this crime is punishable by death in Jewish custom. And what they're saying to Jesus when they accuse Him of blasphemy is, "You deserve to die," and we're going to make sure that that happens. You can go back and you can look at Luke chapter 6, verse 11, Jesus is talking, and the Pharisees are trying to argue with Him, and Jesus just embarrasses them. He just really puts them in their place, biblically, spiritually, in the realm of truth. He embarrasses them publicly, and they go out and they decide, "How are we going to get rid of this guy?" We can't let this guy keep embarrassing us like that. We're the teachers. We're the leaders. We're the spiritual authority. Here's Jesus upstaging us, and already, Luke chapter 6, they're planning how to kill Him. And that brings us to Luke 8. Look at Luke 8, you find, right in the middle there, beginning above verse 4, the parable of the sower, if your Bible has headings above different sections. And then the purpose of parables, or maybe the explanation of the parable, right down below it. This is one of my all-time favorite Bible passages. This is one of those passages that when I sit down to study it and I know that I'm going to preach it, you almost just sort of step back and say, "What do you need to say?" When you read it, it's pretty obvious. It's pretty straightforward. There's not a whole lot of confusion around it. There's not a whole lot of questions that you can really ask to misunderstand it. It's pretty straightforward. But listen, it's straightforward because Jesus gives us the explanation in these verses. And one thing I would be willing to bet is that when you've read this parable, you know it, you're familiar with it. The parable of the soils, the parable of the sower, you've read it, you've come across it in a devotional book, you've had a Sunday school lesson on it, you've heard a sermon on it, whatever. My guess is that most of the time it gets ripped out of its context. And we only talk about the actual parable itself and then the explanation. And we leave out what comes between the parable and the explanation, and there is something between it. And we don't factor in what comes before the parable. And we certainly don't think about what comes right after the parable. And we do what we are in danger of doing if we only preach sermon series all the time. We just yank verses out of the Bible and we ignore the context and we don't really understand what's happening in Jesus' life, who he's talking to and why he's saying these things. And so we're going to look at Luke 8, 1 to 21. We can't dig into every verse in depth, but we're going to try to get the big picture of this whole passage. Here's the big idea of our verses this morning. You ready? The pattern of your life reflects how you have received God's Word and how you have embraced His Kingdom. The pattern of your life is a reflection. It will tell on you. It's proof as to whether or not you have received God's Word or how you have received God's Word and how you have embraced His Kingdom. And the word pattern is really important. We're not talking about a snapshot here. I could come into your life, you could come into my life and you could take a snapshot on any given day and any given moment and you would look at that snapshot, that moment in somebody's life and you would say that does not look like somebody who has received God's Word and embraced His Kingdom. That's true for all of us. And so I'm not saying are there any snapshots in your life that don't look right. I'm talking about the overall pattern of your life, who you are in your character, who other people know you to be and who they expect you to be. The overall pattern of your life will reveal. It will reflect how you have received God's Word and how you have embraced His Kingdom. Now look at the Bible, let's read the text, Luke 8 verse 1 all the way to 21. The word of God says this, "Soon afterward He, Jesus, went on through cities and villages proclaiming and bringing good news of the Kingdom of God. The Twelve were with Him and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna the wife of Chousa, Herod's household manager and Susanna and many others who provided for them out of their means. And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to Him, He said in a parable. So, or went out to sow a seed and as He sowed, some fell among the path and it was trampled under foot and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock and as it grew up it withered away because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns and the thorns grew up with it and choked it and some fell on to good soil and to good soil and it grew and it yielded a hundredfold. As He said these things, He called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." When His disciples asked Him what the parable meant, He said, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of God, but for others they're in parables so that seeing they may not see in hearing they may not understand." Now, the parable is this, the seed is the Word of God, the ones along the path are those who have heard, then the devil comes and takes away the Word from their heart so that they may not believe and be saved. And the ones on the rock are those who when they hear the Word receive it with joy. But these have no root, they believe for a while and in time of testing fall away. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life and their fruit does not mature. Because for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the Word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience. No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a jar, puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand so that those who enter may see the light. Nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. Take care then how you hear. Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has more will be given and from the one who has not even what he thinks he has will be taken away. Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd and he was told your mother and your brothers are standing outside desiring to see you. But he answered them, "My brother, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the Word of God and do it." Let's pray. Father, we are familiar with these verses, we have read these verses, there are some things in these verses that are very plain and there are some things that we need to be very careful how we hear them. And our prayer this morning very simply is that you would give us ears to hear the truth, hearts to receive it. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Let's start with the broad context, really, really simple here. It's in verse one, Jesus is teaching and preaching about his kingdom. Everything that we just read falls under this umbrella of Jesus talking about his kingdom. Verse one, "He went through the cities and villages proclaiming and bringing good news of the kingdom of God." You need to understand that Jesus' kingdom is not like the kingdoms you see around the world today. His kingdom is different, entirely different. And I hope you see the irony, at the very least we could call it irony. And really, if we're honest, we could say it's a little bit funny that Jesus is walking around telling everybody that he has a kingdom. You think about that. This is a homeless Jewish man wandering around in the backwoods redneck district of the Roman Empire. And he's got a bunch of fishermen following him, a bunch of nobodies, a bunch of people who are not religiously trained, not politically connected. He's got some ladies following him around. And here he is, a homeless guy with a bunch of weirdos following him, and he's talking to everybody he sees and he's telling him, "I have a kingdom." That's funny. This is a little bit like the homeless guy walking down the street, talking to himself, and you stop and you visit with him, and he starts to tell you about his big bank account and his fancy car and this, that, and you just look at the guy and you say, "Really? That's special. That's nice. Here's Jesus, homeless, a ragtag bunch of people walking around with him, not a penny to his name, not an army following behind him. And everybody that he sees, he's telling him, "I have a kingdom. I have a kingdom. You need to be part of my kingdom. The kingdom of God has come. And if the kingdom of God has come with me being present, guess what? That makes me the king." Everything he's talking about centers around this idea of his kingdom. And when Jesus goes to describe it, this gets even funnier. Somebody may say, "Well, what's your kingdom like? Tell us about this kingdom. This will be good." He doesn't talk about a big army, doesn't talk about Roman legions. He doesn't talk about emperors, or kings, or thrones. He doesn't talk about political influence, or this political party, or these connections. What does he say? He says, "Okay, I'll tell you what my kingdom's like." It's like a farmer out there in the middle of nowhere, sowing seed. This is what my kingdom is like. It's a kingdom that is unlike the kingdoms of this world. It's different. And Luke goes out of his way to describe to us the citizens of this kingdom. Who's a part of it? Here's Jesus walking around, claiming to be a king, claiming to have a kingdom. Who is actually part of this kingdom? Luke tells us in verse 1, 2, and 3. It's anyone who sees their need for Jesus and asks Jesus to change their life. That's who's in the kingdom. Do you see your need for Jesus? And are you looking to Jesus, asking Jesus to change your life? So we read about who's with him in verse 1, 2, and 3. It says the 12 are with him. Look, the 12 are a mixed bag, just a bunch of guys. Some of them were fishermen, Peter Andrew, James John. One of them was a tax collector. Another one of them was a political, what you may say radical. Others of them were what you may say political conservatives. Some of them were more liberal in their leanings when it came to politics and world issues. They're all over the map. Some of them we know nothing about. It's just a motley group of guys. And then Luke tells us about some women who are following Jesus. There's Mary Magdalene. And he throws in the detail out of her came seven demons. We don't know exactly what her life looked like when these seven demons were part of her life, but can we just say it probably wasn't great? Seven demons? She was probably desperate. She was probably destitute. Then we read about Joanna, the wife of Chuzah, whose husband was the household manager for Herod. She would have been one of the richest women in Palestine, loaded. And there she is with Mary Magdalene, walking around following this homeless Jewish guy who says he has a kingdom. And then we read about Susanna. We don't know anything about her. And then we read about some other women. There was others there who had means and they supported Jesus out of their means. And there's the twelve and they have some modest means. And it's just this ragtag bunch of people following Jesus around. Why do you think Luke mentions all these folks right here? They've been following Jesus for a while. This wasn't just something that started in chapter eight. They continue to follow Jesus. We know the twelve stuck around, at least to the very end when they scattered. But then they came back and we know that the women stuck around to the bitter end. They were some of these women who were there at the cross when Jesus died. Why mention them now? Why throw the detail in right here to say these are the kinds of people following Jesus? I think the answer is pretty obvious when you read verse one. Jesus is talking about a kingdom. He's claiming to be the king. And you may wonder, who in the world would be part of a kingdom like that? Well, there's some poor people and some rich people. There's some crazy people and some relatively not crazy people. There's some influential connected people and there's some nobodies. There's some guys and there's some girls. What do they all have in common? One thing, they know they need Jesus and they're looking to Him for salvation and they're looking to Him to change their life. They have nothing else in common, nothing. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to literally look around the room. Don't get up. I want you to look around. It's awkward because everybody's doing it. You're looking around. You make eye contact with somebody. Don't hold it too long. Just glance. Look around. Look behind you. You're just looking beside you. Look behind you. Look around. You may sit here this morning and you may say, you know, I kind of look around. I don't know that I fit in here. I don't know that these people are my people. Guess what? None of us fit in. None of us are here because we have something in common from a worldly perspective. We're here because we have Jesus in common and we acknowledge our need for Jesus. And we're looking to Jesus, yes, to save us, but also to change us. That's what brings us together. That's what brought these people together. That's what binds people together in the kingdom of God. Acknowledging your need for Jesus, looking to Jesus to change your life. Now that's pretty cool. Brings a bunch of motley people together. Rich people, poor people, men, women, influential, left, right, all these people. They come together. Here's the best part. Not only does that bring you into the kingdom, but it brings you into the family. That's where this passage ends, right, verse 19, 20, and 21. Hey, your family's outside. They want to talk to you. And Jesus says what? You do what I tell you to do and you're my family. What? You don't want to talk to your mom? Your brothers are out there. They want to crack you on the head. They think you're nuts. That's not my family. You do the will of the Father, and then you're in the family. Not only are you brought into a kingdom, but a family. If it was just a kingdom, you may say, well, maybe I'm like the court jester in the kingdom. Maybe I'm the lowly peasant serf in the kingdom. Maybe I'm a slave in the kingdom. Jesus is saying, look, I'm bringing you into the kingdom, but I'm also bringing you into my family. This is great hope for people who don't feel like they fit, for people who don't feel like they belong. And this is a rebuke for many of our churches who feel like we can only be a church family with people who look just like us, think just like us, talk like us, dress just like us. You get the idea. We're not here because we're all just alike. We're here because we acknowledge that we need Jesus. We want Him to change our life. We're asking Him to bring us into His kingdom, and we're rejoicing that He brings us into His family. I know that what I'm about to say doesn't feel true in your heart, but it is truer than the nose on your face. You look around the room and you find somebody who looks nothing like you. Male, female, young, rich, poor, old, young, whatever. And you look at that person, you say, if that person loves Jesus, and if I love Jesus, I have more in common with that person. I'm more connected to that person than a family member, than a brother, than a mother, than a father who doesn't love Jesus. That's true. It may not feel like it's true, but it is true. And Jesus says, I'm bringing you into my kingdom. Not because we share all these things in common, but because you know that you need me, and you're looking to me to change your life, and you're in the kingdom, and now you're part of the family. So he's talking about a kingdom, he's telling us who is in the kingdom, and then there's something you need to understand before we get to the parable. I want you to understand why Jesus tells parables. In our minds, we think, well, they're sort of catchy, easy-to-remember stories. He did it because he's a master teacher, and he wanted people to understand. Look what Jesus says, what you see here is that parables are told to reveal and conceal the truth. You can figure out all the theological complexities of that. I'm just telling you, that's what Jesus said. Why did Jesus say that he's teaching imperables? Well, to you, it's been given, verse 10, to know the secrets of the kingdom of God. But for others, they're imperables. Why are they imperables so that they can see but not see, and they can hear but not hear? You see, Jesus is very popular at this point in his ministry, and crowds are gathering to listen to him. You read about a crowd in verse 4, "A great crowd gathered in people from town after town came to them, to him." So what did he do? He told them a parable. Did he tell it so that everyone would understand something really important? And according to Jesus, Jesus said, "I'm telling them so that some of them will get it and some of them won't." And it's only later that the disciples, this inner circle comes and says, "Hey, about that story earlier, could you, we're kind of in disagreement about how to interpret that. Could you set us straight? Absolutely, I'll set you straight. This is this, this is this, this, this, this, this. No one else hears that. And Jesus knows there's a difference between people who are interested in him and people who are willing to follow him. You understand that? There's a world of difference between somebody who says, "I have some curiosity or some interest in Jesus or spiritual things," and somebody who says, "I am willing to follow the king." And Jesus tells parables to separate those people. If you're just interested, great. You're going to hear a nice little story, you're going to go home, you're going to forget about it, on your way. But if you're serious, and if you want to listen, and you want to learn, and you want to submit to the king, here's how you understand it. He's doing it to reveal the truth and to conceal the truth. So here's the parable, it's very simple. Jesus talks about the seed in the parable being the Word of God, okay? The seed is the Word of God, that's in verse 5, that's in verse 11, that's even all the way back to verse 1 when Jesus himself is speaking about his kingdom. He's sowing this seed about the Word of God. And then there's four types of soil, very simple. First, there's a path. The path represents those who hear the Word of God, but they do not respond. They hear it, but they don't respond. It's hard, and Jesus seems to indicate, although he doesn't explain all the specifics we might like to speculate about, but Jesus indicates that Satan has a role in their not responding. Comparing Satan to these birds that come, and they take the seed, and he says, Satan is at work in their life. Same thing Paul says, if you want to jot down 2 Corinthians 4-4, I just rolled all the way to the front, 2 Corinthians 4-4, "The God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ." Now Satan is involved in their life to keep them from accepting, responding, making a decision about this Word. So there's the path. Then there's the rocky soil. Rocky soil represents those who respond with joy, but fall away in times of testing, difficulty. It's in verse 6 and verse 13. They don't have root, Jesus says. They believe for a while, and in times of testing, pain, suffering, illness, disaster, they fall away. Then there's the thorny soil. Those who hear the Word of God, their faith is choked by life. Not anything necessarily bad, just life. You make a response, they spring up quickly, but around their life there are all sorts of thorns that choke out life. And again, it's not necessarily bad things, Jesus describes them in verse 14, talking about the cares and the riches and the pleasures of life, just life. Lastly, the good soil represents those who accept the Word of God and they endure. Jesus says they hold fast, Jesus says they bear fruit with patience. It doesn't happen immediately. A field does not produce a harvest overnight, but slowly, over time, there's growth and you can see it and you can notice it and you can mark the progress in these people endure and there is a harvest at the end. That's pretty straightforward. It's straightforward because we have the explanation. Jesus explains it very simply and very plainly for the disciples and for us. There's a king and he has a kingdom and it's sort of like a farmer sowing seed. Sometimes people want to be part of the kingdom, sometimes they don't and Jesus says, you know, some of the seed falls on the path and they don't respond. And some of the seed on the rocks and they spring up but they don't have any roots. So when the sun comes out, trials, temptations, whatever, they fade away, they burn off. And then you have some people and they're with the thorns and yeah, they make a decision, they make a response, but then it gets choked out just by life itself, but then there's the good soil and those are the people Jesus says who are part of my kingdom, those who acknowledge their need for me and look to me to change their life. Let me just ask you four questions that are not asked in this parable, but I think you need to wrestle with them. Number one, what if, as you sit here this morning and you drop all the religious pretense, you just honestly say, I'm here this morning at church and you just look me in the eye and you say, I'm the path, I know I'm the path. I'm hearing what you're saying and I don't have any desire to respond to it. I'm hearing what you're talking about Jesus, I'm not interested in signing up. Some of you may be the path, what do you do if you're the path? You get really serious about begging the farmer, the father, about plowing up your heart. You're begging, plow it up, turn it over, make it soft. What if you say, as I sit here and listen to this parable, I'm number two, I'm the rocks and I know that I don't have any root and I'm just sort of hanging on by a thread and I know that when the sun comes out, there's no chance that I'm going to hang on. Some of you may be in that position. If that's you, you need to honestly pray God, I need you to get the rocks out of my life so that I can grow deep roots. I don't just want to fade away when the trials come, I want to endure and you better start praying to the farmer, remove the rocks so that I can grow roots. What if you're number three? You know the Jesus stuff, it all sounds pretty good but I got a lot going on right now. I'm just busy. You don't know how busy I am. I just got a lot of stuff right now on my plate that I'm trying to juggle. Maybe someday when I get all this stuff taken care of, I can be more concerned about following Jesus. If that's you, you better find a way and you better ask God to show you a way to get rid of the thorns that are choking out your faith. And what if you're the good soil? What if you look at the pattern of your life and the pattern of your life says yes, you've embraced the kingdom and you've received God's word and you are growing and you are maturing and you are bearing fruit. What if that's you? Well, what you certainly don't do is look at the people down the row who may be other types of soil and say you're a loser. But you understand that if your heart is good, it's only because God made it good. And if we just sing that, I think we did. You are good. You are good when there's nothing good in me. And the Bible says very plainly in the book of Psalms and in the book of Romans, twice in Psalms, once in Romans, the exact same words, there are none good, none. No one is righteous, no not one. No one seeks after God, no one. And if your heart is good, understand it's not because you have all your spiritual ducks in a row, but it's because God has started a work in your life. And what you need to pray is that God would bring it to completion. Because what happens to a good field that grows a big crop the next year? You've got to plow it up again. You can't just plow it once and then for the next 20 years expect a crop to grow. You've got to continually work the soil. If your heart is good, you better be praying God continue to work the soil, continue to turn it over. Don't let the thorns grow up. Don't let the rocks come in. Father, don't let me become the path. Keep my heart good fertile soil. The parable ends with a warning. And sometimes we leave this off and we miss it. Here's the warning. You can't fool God and your time is short. Is that blunt enough? You can't fool God and your time is very short, 16, 17 and 18. He talks about a lamp under a jar and verse 16 is there to help you understand verse 17. He's talking about light and the fact that light reveals things. You don't hide it because that's what light does. That's why you light it in the first place. And he's saying everything is going to be revealed. You're not going to fool God. You are not going to fool Him. When your time is short, the one who has will receive more. The one who has not, even what he thinks he has. He doesn't have it, but he thinks he does, even that's going to be taken away and given to somebody else. Let me make it plain like this. You know I'm a visual learner. I'm a pretty basic guy. So let me put four pictures up on the screen. On the left, you got the path. See it? Next to that, the rocks. Next to that, the thorns. Next to that, good soil. Okay? Everybody on the same page? What we like to do in the United States of America, and especially in the Bible Belt, and my goodness especially in West Texas, is we like to draw a nice line between the path and the rocks right there. And we like to say things like this. Well, let me tell you about so-and-so. They've invited Jesus into their heart. Let me tell you about this teenager I know. They went to camp with us and they prayed to receive Jesus. Let me tell you about my aunt, Susie. She's made the decision. She's responded to Jesus. And we look at this and we say, you know, only the people on the left of the right line don't respond. Everyone on the right of the line makes a response, right? That's true in the parable. The rock springs up and there's a response and the thorns, it grows up with the thorns. And then the good soil, obviously it grows and produces a crop. And what we like to do is we like to look at this situation and say, this is a really nice story. I'm glad Jesus told this. And we're just going to draw the line right here. And if you're on the left side of the line, you don't go to heaven. If you're on the right side of the line, you do go to heaven. You get to go to the kingdom. You get to be part and present with the king if you're on that side of the line. You know what the problem with that is? Line's in the wrong spot. Jesus told the story. He gets to draw the line wherever he wants to draw the line. Here's where Jesus draws the line. Jesus could care less about people being interested in him or people making a response to him. He could care less. He had crowds of people interested ready to make a decision. And what did he do? He told them a story designed so that some of them wouldn't get it. And Jesus draws the line right here and he says, look, obviously if you're on the path, you're in trouble. We all agree on that. If you're the rocks, you're in trouble. I'm not interested in people who respond and then they have no root and they fade away. Not what I'm looking for. Those are the people who hear the parable but they don't have ears to hear it and they go home and they have dinner and they never think about it again. And Jesus says, I'm not interested in the people who think their faith is going to grow up with weeds and it's not going to be a big deal. Those are the people who are here and Jesus says they have eyes to see but they don't really see. And I'm telling them this story so that the people who are not serious about submitting to a king go their merry way and the people who want to make a response and a commitment and a life change get the understanding. They get the explanation. Jesus draws the line right there. You can fool your preacher and you can pretend the line is in a different spot. You can fool your mama by telling her, well, you know, VBS, 1973, church camp, 1982, two weeks ago up in the water, I got wet, you know, hey, I've responded to Jesus. You can fool a lot of people but you're not fooling God. You're not. He knows where to draw the line. He knows where the division lies. Jesus tells the story. He draws the line where He wants to draw it. I realize that in this part of the country, and Odessa maybe is a little bit unique because of the people who are drawn here for different reasons, but in this part of the country, I know that 99% of the folks you meet, or at least it feels like 99% of the folks you meet would tell you that they've made a decision about Jesus. I get that. And when you talk to those people and you're sharing Jesus with those people, you just have to be very careful with your words. And sometimes you just have to bluntly say to people, you know, I'm glad you made a decision. I'm glad you made a response, but what's happening now? Are you enduring? Are you bearing fruit with patience? Are you like the rocks? Are you like the thorns? Because Jesus isn't interested in decisions that end with the decision. That's what I said earlier. What do we have in common? Who's part of the kingdom? It's people who acknowledge their need for Jesus, right, salvation, and they look to Jesus to change their life. I'm submitting to the King. I'm in the family. I'm part of the kingdom. I want to be good soil. I want to grow up and I want to bear fruit for you. Very simply, what Luke is telling us in this parable and what Jesus is saying is this. The Son of Man came to this earth to seek and to save the lost. In no way, shape, or form does that mean that the Son of Man came to earth, died on a cross so that you would pray a prayer and make a decision. The Son of Man came to seek you and to save you and to change you and to bring you into his family to make you a member of the kingdom and to change your life, to take your stony, thorny, rocky heart and to make it good soil and to begin a work in you that he will bring to completion on the day of Christ Jesus. I hope that you have made a decision about Jesus. I hope that you've made a response to Jesus, but if that's where it ended for you, you're on the wrong side of the line. Let me pray for you. Father, we're grateful for these words of Jesus. Their words that we need to hear in our neck of the woods and our part of the country and our community, we need to hear this and we need to wrestle with it. First of all, what does it mean for us as individuals? What kind of soil are we? Father, it also matters for our kids and our grandkids and our neighbors and the people we sit in Sunday school class with. We know that left to ourselves, our hearts are hard. We know that unless you open our eyes and unstop our ears, we will not see and we will not hear. And so this morning we pray for eyes to see. We pray for ears to hear. We pray that your word, this seed would be planted in our life and that it would grow. It would grow down in growing roots and it would grow up in bearing fruit. And Father, we pray that you would never let us rest in a decision that we made last week, last decade, last century, but that we would constantly be moving forward following our King. Father, I pray for the folks in this room. I pray that you would open their hearts to understand, to receive this word, to apply it to their life. Father, we want to be good soil, as individuals and as families and as a church. So we pray that you would bring that about, that you would plow us up. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen.