Jesus teaches how to evaluate where you are in your spiritual walk.
Soils testing
MATTHEW 13:1-9, 18-23; MARK 4:1-8, 14-20; LUKE 8:4-8, 12-15
S-1739
In Matthew 13 (teaching sections in Matthew) Matthew gathers together the seven teaching parables on the Kingdom of Heaven.
Explain Parables of the Kingdom in Matthew 13. Describe what the kingdom will be like on earth until the 2nd coming of Christ.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like:
Matthew 13:24-25
Matthew 13:31
Matthew 13:33
Matthew 13:47
The Kingdom of God is the one thing in life worth sacrificing everything to obtain.
READ Matthew 13:44-45.
☻SLIDE #2: THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS ANYWHERE THE SPHERE OF CHRIST’S INFLUENCE IS SEEN AND FELT.
☻SLIDE #3: LUKE 17:20-21: Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”
☻SLIDE #4: What are the advantages of the Kingdom?
☻Peace with God: The war is over.
Sins forgiven from pains and mistakes of the past.
Keep account current by grace.
☻“Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Relationship of intimacy begins—get to know God’s heart—questions answered—spiritual fulfillment.
Because God lives within:
☻A living relationship with the WORD OF GOD for guidance and oneness with God to work through all sorts of situations.
Holy Spirit is the teacher. No Holy Spirit, no real understanding.
Angry: “I will destroy you.” He failed but I was so angry with him. Parking lot at hospital reading Bible in pain and agony: David’s imprecatory Psalms. OK to be angry and not sin. God spoke to me through His Word.
Lonely and in despair. Stressed: month off. Drove to Carlsbad Caverns. Hotel in the middle of no where: Julie and little daughters asleep.
Got out of bed, opened to Habakkuk. Asked God all sorts of questions about why life is so unfair and why there is so much pain and suffering. He got his answer: “Though no figs, olives, cattle in the stall, yet will I praise you.”
Something stupid: Cut off driver on the way to Seminary: “A soft answer turns away wrath.”
“I am sorry, please forgive me.”
“Well, all right; just don’t ever do it again.”
☻Jesus’ life and power for victory in every situation
He never promised to keep away all the pain. He promised to give us the power to be victorious.
Philippians 4:10-13: Learned to be content. I can do all things through Christ.
We have to play the cards we are dealt.
☻A family of brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world.
Talked to Scott Truett re the Baylor line.
Wengen: Before summer season. Still snow on trails. Dinner in hotel restaurant. Derrek shocked: great fellowship.
ABF Teacher-Director meeting yesterday. Joy in ABFs.
☻A secure future
Ready to die
Heart surgery: Heart Lung machine, not cleaned: 19 out of 20 be OK. What happens if the 1.
“Wake up here, OK; wake up in Heaven, that’s OK.
Rejoice with Dad and Jessie
One of the most powerful manifestations of Kingdom of God—Christ’s sphere of influence.
STORY OF GEORGE FOX AND KENN PERRY: both in surgery after car wreck. No ID because swim trunks. Read names in paper at parkland. Went to parkland and two sets of parents.
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done” is not just a prayer for the future. It is a request for the kingdom to come in our lives. So that we can live under the influence of Christ anywhere.
☻SLIDE #5: The parable of the Sower shows us how the kingdom comes into the human heart—OR NOT!
READ MATTHEW 13:1-9: That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop — a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 He who has ears, let him hear.”
☻SLIDE #6: THE SEED IS THE WORD OF GOD (MATTHEW 13:3; LUKE 8:11).
LUKE 8:11: This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God.
People want to hear God speak. They want a special personal message from God before they will believe.
He has already spoken—right here in the Bible.
The Bible doesn’t need to be defended—it just needs to be read.
Preacher eating fish in restaurant. Running argument—good natured—with a man in the town,
“Do you understand everything in the Bible?”
“No.”
“Well, what do you do with all things you don’t understand?”
The same thing I do when I am eating fish. (grinned at his friend) I eat the fish and put the bones over here on the side for any old fool to choke on.”
☻SLIDE #7: Mark Twain: “It is not what I don’t understand about the Bible that bothers me. It is what I do understand.”
We don’t need to apologize for it. Don’t need to rationalize it. We just need to plant it.
☻SLIDE #8: THE SOWER IS THE LORD Jesus—OR ANYONE WHO IS SHARING THE WORD (MATTHEW 13:3)
The Sower dug his hand into a basket of seed and was scattering it generously around His field! In a lovely and rhythmic, systematic way, we are to present the Word throughout our lives.
The responsibility of the one who sows the gospel is not to produce a harvest. His only responsibility is to faithfully spread the seed as far and wide as he is able.
Julie leads two friends to Christ when she is in 8th grade.
She looked up Marshall Millsap in the internet this week. (I looked Jane and discovered she was a cardiologist in San Francisco.
Marshall is VP of Global Chase Bank, a company with an annual sales of 739 billion dollars.
Bill Bryan is now the Dean of Perkins Theological Seminary in Dallas.
“Did you get all nervous? Was it hard?”
“No, I just told them what happened to me.”
Just share your story about Jesus. Take the pressure off of yourself and share the Word.
☻SLIDE #9: When God speaks there are four responses (MATTHEW 13:18-23).
☻SLIDE #10: THE PATHWAY SOIL IS THE HEARER WHO IS NOT INTERESTED BECAUSE OF SATANIC DECEPTION.
In Palestine the fields were in long narrow strips; and the ground between the strips was always a right of way and therefore it was beaten as hard as a pavement,
☻SLIDE #11: MATTHEW 13:18-19: “Listen then to what the parable of the Sower means: 19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
☻SLIDE #12: 2 CORINTHIANS 4:4: The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
C.S. Lewis, in his “Screwtape Letters,” describes a man who goes into a library to read and meditate. His mind is suddenly opened to deep thoughts of God. Confronted with his own standing before God, he starts thinking in terms of his eternal welfare.
Then, Lewis says, the demons that are assigned to keep him from discovering truth begin to panic—try to talk him into committing adultery.
Wormwood: “Call his attention to the siren on the street. Call his attention to his stomach.
He gets up and goes to lunch—I can think about this later. And that is all it takes.
These people are spiritual warfare prayer projects.
☻SLIDE #13: THE ROCKY SOIL IS THE SHALLOW PROFESSOR WHO WILTS WHEN THE GOING GETS ROUGH.
The stony ground was not ground that was filled with stones; it was a thin skin of topsoil of an underlying shelf of limestone rock.
When this person hears the gospel it brings a religious experience but it does not bring salvation.
All the change is on the surface, rather than in the depths of his heart.
☻SLIDE #14: MATTHEW 13:20-21: The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since (the soil was shallow) he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.
Note the response of Joy! In true conversion, the weeping endures for an evening, joy comes in the morning.
His feelings were changed but not his soul. There is no repentance, no remorse over sin, no contrition, no brokenness, no recognition of the need for a Savior.
People weeping during spotlight series.
MAN WEEPING SALVATION STORY in old chapel on old site—near Pharmacy in Walgreens
Let’s confess your sins…Bitterness at first wife…Alcohol…drugs…living with woman.
Want to give up bitterness…alcohol…drugs…move out. Weeps.
Jesus can forgive all that and give you a clean slate.
Invite Him into your life and Jesus will begin cleaning up that mess of a life.”
Wept as he gave his life to Christ.
☻SLIDE #15: THE THORN-INFESTED SOIL IS HEARER WHO IS DISTRACTED BY TOO MANY OTHER THINGS.
When the Sower was sowing the ground looked clean enough—but it was full of grabgrass seeds.
The result was that the good seed and the dormant weeds grew together; but the weeds were so strong that they throttled the life out of the seed, and it died, while the weeds flourished.
☻SLIDE #16: MATTHEW 13:21-22: The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.
The weeds are the things that ruin the Kingdom of God in our lives.
What do weeds look like?
☻SLIDE #17: 1 John 2:15-17: Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world — the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does — comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
The weeds are Distractions:
Story Of Young Girl Dropping Comb While Driving And Running Under Vugtaveens Car At 45 Mph And Surviving.
Distracted while talking on cell phone while driving.
☻SLIDE #18: THE GOOD SOIL IS THE FRUIT-PRODUCING CHRISTIAN.
This is the point of the entire parable: true believers produce fruit.
☻SLIDE #19: MATTHEW 13:23: Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop — a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
What will the kingdom look like in your life? How will you know you are in the kingdom?
Three types of fruit are mentioned in the Bible
☻SLIDE #20: The Fruit of the Spirit
☻SLIDE #21: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)
Begin to be filled more and more with the Spirit of Christ.
STORY: Ate at Rubios one evening this week. Boy struggling with making order on cash register. “You’re first day, isn’t it.?”
Charged me $9.50 for a Pesky plate. Paid, thought it was a little high. He was on next customer. Looked at price list. “Hey, I think you overcharged me. Boss came over and boy sweating. I was going to get $2.53 change. Felt bad, embarrassed boy. “Well, he needed to learn.
Ate my dinner and fruit of spirit. Walked to counter and gave him $5 tip. “I can’t take this?” “Sure you can. Put it in your pocket and say ‘thank you.’”
He slid it in his pocket, looked at me and said, “Thank you.
☻SLIDE #22: The Fruit of good Behavior
Philippians 1:11: filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
Life changing—more sensitive to sin and the things that keep us from—lifestyle begins to reflect it.
☻SLIDE #23: The Fruit of New Converts
Romans 1:13: I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.
Wanted my best friends to go to heaven with me.
Billy Gipe
Dennis Wall: pastor in San Antonio
Jim Tasch: Baptized same night. died in car wreck when he was 21.
☻SLIDE #24: COULD IT BE THAT ONLY ONE OF EVERY THREE PERSONS WHO PROFESSES FAITH IN CHRIST IS REALLY A CHRISTIAN?
Jesus said, “By their fruit you shall know them.”
☻SLIDE #25: Explaining OF FOUR SOILS: Pathway; shallow; weeds; fruit
Notice that sprouting doesn’t make a Christian. That is important to note. The enthusiasm, the joy, the immediate profession are not salvation.
This is what the writer to the Hebrews is referring to the people who only “taste of Jesus” who ultimately “fall away.”
☻SLIDE #26: Hebrews 6:4-6: It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
We can taste something and spit it out without fully committing ourselves to it. But, when we swallow, we are fully committed.
This is what communion is all about.
☻SLIDE #27: remember the advantages of the Kingdom?
☻Peace with God: The war is over.
☻“Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
☻A living relationship with the WORD OF GOD for guidance and oneness with God to work through all sorts of situations.
☻”Jesus’ life and power to be victorious in every situation
☻A fellowship of brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world.
☻A secure future
Meditate