All Ears

Happy Sunday crossway. This morning, you have Pastor Seth Kemp bringing the word.

When we think of Seth, we think of the word care very much.

So Pastor Seth shows so much care for handling people, and he shows

so much care for handling processes that will care for people well. And Pastor

Seth shows tremendous care in handling God's Word, not only handling what scripture says,

but care for the people to whom he's communicating. So thanks for welcoming

Pastor Seth. Very kind of you this morning. Look at you following Pastor

Josh's leadership even over video. My goodness, my goodness. Well, how

about you grab your bibles this morning? Grab your bibles and turn to Luke

chapter eight, Luke chapter begin turning there, and if you need a Bible,

or you need a bulletin or ushers who are coming down the aisle would

be happy to resource you with one of those, just put your hand up

and they'll they'll get you what you need. So, as you're getting situated

here this morning, I would like to know if you are all ears today?

Are you all ears today? As we open up the Word together?

And I ask that because I think Jesus requires it of us. In the

text that we have before us, he'll use a phrase that says, he

who has ears to hear, let him hear. And this passage, in

fact, is full of hearing type language. When we read it, you'll

see that come up time and again. So we use the phrase all ears,

or if we tell someone that we're talking to hey, I'm all ears

here for you in front of you right now. We know what that means,

right. It means more than just hey, I'm in the same place

that you are and the things that you're saying. You know, I have

a conscious awareness that there's audio in the air. Okay, it means more

than that. Right If we say hey, I'm all ears, it means

that you have my full attention. It means that what you're about to say,

I want to let that sink in to me. It means that you

know, probably you even kind of have a posture where you're saying, okay,

if there's a next step to follow, that's really important. I want

to understand what that is so that I can walk in that way. I'm

all ears kind of encompasses that type of posture, doesn't it. We're wanting

to hear, and hear well and deeply. So with that, then let's

look at Luke eight, being all ears for it. Luke eight, Chapter

rather, Chapter eight, versus four through fifteen. Luke eight four. And

when a great crowd was gathering, and people from town after town came to

him, that's Jesus, he said, in a parable. A sower went

out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the

path and was trampled underfoot, 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 into good soil

and grew and yielded a hundredfold. As he said these things, he called

out, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And when

his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said to you, it

has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of God. But for

others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and

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,

and the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, 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 on their way, they are choked

by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not

mature. As 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. This is God's word. And let's pray together once more.

And so Father, as your word has been read, and as we

have already been engaged in worshiping you this morning, Lord, carry us further.

Lord, let your word have its effect on our hearts. Lord,

we want hearts like good soil, receiving and multiplying the good seed of your

word. Father, Would that be the case for us this morning? Lord,

Please do your work. We ask in Jesus name, Amen manet me

think my beard, my beard's grabbing it. Try to move that all right?

Well, just to give a little bit more context and color here to

the scene that we have in front of us. Both Matthew and Mark have

this accounts as well, and in this account there's a couple of details we

won't turn there, but kind of help us to picture the scene a little

bit more. For one, what we actually find kind of leading up to

this is that Jesus is in a boat. He's teaching from a boat off

the shore, and then there's a great crowd on the shore that has gathered

to hear what Jesus has to say. So that's just a bit of imagery

for you as you seek to engage well with God's word this morning. And

then a second little tidbit that's helpful as well. In the second half of

this passage, we read that the disciples come up and ask Jesus to explain

the parable, and some of the other accounts fill in some details there that

the disciples doesn't mean just the twelve. Sometimes in the gospels that's what it

means, but here there's actually the twelve plus others that have gathered wanting to

understand what Jesus has said by this parable that he has has given. And

so again just a little bit of extra color there for you as you engage

with this scene. But but clear in each account, no matter where you're

reading it from, is this call following the parable that Jesus gives, this

call to listen up, we'll call it the call to listen up. You

heard the language there that Jesus uses, right, he who has ears to

hear, let him hear. Now, Now there's a force to those words

that we might capture with the translation there, and translators are always working to

really capture the essence of what the original languages are saying. And one translator,

I think it helps us to feel some of the force that's with the

language there when it says the one who has ears to hear had better listen.

So, in other words, listen up. This is really important.

What Jesus has just declared is something that you need to be all ears for

that you need to be paying close attention to. So the story, you're

right, the parable that Jesus tells just kind of a quick recap for us.

For those in Jesus's day, this would have been a typical farming scene,

and they would have seen and been able to picture right away in their

minds, maybe a little bit better than we can being in the middle of

San Antonio, right, But a typical farming scene for them in their day.

They would have pictured this farmer who had a bag of seed, and

he's taking a handful at a time, and he's scattering it about in the

field. Is sewing process that he's going to do every year. And there's

four landing places for this seed, right, four landing places for the seeds,

but then also four according outcomes, how many of which actually proves good

fruitful? Just one right, the last one the good soil that we'll look

at. And so again the scene here, kind of imagining it through their

eyes at that time. The stuff that falls along the path where the farmer

himself is walking and where others would have walked that that seed is declared pretty

well hopeless right foot traffic going through their birds of the year that see it.

It's an easy grab for them, and this seed ends up not having

any kind of fruitfulness whatsoever. That's the path. But then the rock,

it falls on the rock, and you could also translate it maybe rocky soil

okay, And this rock here, it's actually not dissimilar from what we might

engage sometime in this region in San Antonio. There's a tiny layer of top

soil, okay, and then rock underneath. There would have been limestone there

and that time, and so yeah, maybe something could sprout just a little

bit, but it's going to instantly hit rock. There's not going to be

moisture to sustain the plant. And so that was that was typical in that

region of the world, kind of rocky or thin soil that they'd sometimes have

to work around. But then the thorns, the thorns, right, well,

what did those look like? Well, maybe it might have been in

their minds at that time a certain weed that was prevalent there that actually grew

up to about my height, up to about six feet high. And these

weeds, these thorns would have an established root system and so very much crowding

out anything else that would want to grow there. But then finally, then,

finally, of course, the good soil where there is depth, something

that can be cultivated. And he heard how Jesus described it there in the

parable. He says that it produces a hundredfold right, produces a hundredfold Now,

now for those who were Jews in that day, and they would have

been engaging those words, sorry about that, they would have been engaging words

like this, they might have had their minds go back to what we have

today. As Genesis twenty six, we're read about Isaac, one of the

patriarchs, the son of Abraham, and we read there that Isaac sowed in

his field and he reaped a hundredfold and the Lord blessed him. So they

amount have heard a phrase like this and said, oh, yeah, I

heard about that story growing up, whereas I've been in synagogue throughout my adult

years. That's right, that's the picture has to picture a hundredfold blessing from

God, not just merely you know, food that grows, a good crop

that we get to have, but blessing of God that's there. So so

that is that. That is the best we can an attempt to try to

engage with the people as the parable would have fallen on their ears in that

day. But it's interesting, isn't it? Because Jesus what does he do?

He gives this story, this parable a good hook right for people's minds

to draw them into what He's He's wanting to say to them. But then

only at the at the end he kind of gives this call, Okay,

this is really important, you better listen, And that seems to kind of

close it out at that time. Interesting. Isn't it interesting that he would

close in that way now? To be sure, to be sure, we

always have to remember when we're reading of Jesus and we're we're tracking with the

teaching ministry that he had Jesus knew motives, He knew the motives of the

hearts of the people there in the crowds. He wasn't afraid when necessary to

thin out the crowds through what he said. He was in the in the

in the practice sometimes of proving people out. And here's what's interesting, because

you saw that little quotation there. I think it's in in verse ten for

us where he says that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may

not understand. See what Jesus was was doing here, what he's actually quoting

there is something from Isaiah in his ministry in the in the Old Testament,

the prophets, they were God's messenger pieces there. And as Isaiah got his

commissioning, he was given a very hard commissioning where he was told, Yeah,

go among this people who have not been faithful to follow me, and

you're going to give them a kind of message that they are not going to

listen to. There's going to be a proving out of my people. There's

going to be a kind of of judgment against the dismissive and the poorly motivated.

They were there in Isaiah's day. They were there in Jesus's day as

well, those who had just gathered in masses at the shore because they wanted

to see more of Jesus's amazing healing miracles that he did, or perhaps they

knew that he was the one who could do things like take a little bit

of food and feed thousands of people. You know this Jesus want to come

and see him, or even those who might have been just gathered around because

they were always looking to test Jesus's word and to trap him something and that

he would that he would say and try to condemn him in that way.

Jesus knew the motive of men's hearts, and so he delivers a parable partly

just along the line of Isaiah, kind of proving out a kind of right

judgment that needed to be brought but but not just that, right, but

before moving on from that and thinking about this this further, just imagine me

doing that here. Um this more with you all, Okay, so um,

let's say, and I've done this. I have sewed seed in our

yard, right, and many of you probably have to. And I'm I

tell you this this parable and I'm going out and I'm tossing my seed.

It's like, oh that stuff hit the sidewalk, it's a goner. And

then some of it, oh, gravelly area, not gonna be good there,

I mean, little sprout Texas sun, nothing doing there, right,

And then oh some of it, some of it, Oh it falls among

the dreaded hackberries. Anybody know what a hackberry is? Like? How do

you stop a hackberry? Right? They have these established roots systems. They're

almost impossible to grow up, seem to grow anywhere anytime, and as stuff

is not going to grow well alongside that. But then some of it,

some of it, Yeah, sewed the seed into this good soil and it

took and blades came up, and they sent out roots and more blades came

up from from them, and oh it was. It was like a hundredfold

reaping there in the sewing that I did, and everybody, this is really

important. You need to hear this, be all ears for this. Wouldn't

that be a strange end to the sermon? Right? Well? What would

you do? How would you deal with that? At first? You might

just be kind of scratching your heads what's going on here? But then what

would many of you do? Well, you'd pursue the answers. You'd be

coming to find me out in the lobby afterwards. I'd be getting emails all

week, Right, but what's so important? What do I need to understand?

I don't quite get it? And you would be right in doing that.

That would be your good move. And as a matter of fact,

what do we have from the disciples? They chase this down. They want

to know more. They didn't understand, but they knew. They heard Jesus's

words to you as ears to hear. Let him hear you better listen up?

And what do they do? They come to him and they ask,

they ask about it? And what does Jesus do. He's eager to tell

them, He's eager to share with them. He's eager to give them the

explanation of this parable. And so for us this morning, for you for

me. Are we chomping at the bit to understand and run with the words

of the kingdom? Are we eager for that? Do we have a listen

up in all ears posture today? I hope so? I hope so,

because Christ wants that for us this morning, and teachings like this that he

gives. So listen up is the call on our lives. But Christ Christ

wants us this morning. Further, I'll put it this way. To test

your soil, we need to do some soil testing. Test your soil.

Look again down at verses eleven through fourteen. Remind ourselves here we read again.

Now the parable is this. This 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 hearts, 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 out by the cares and

riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit is not mature. So here

we are the soil testing time that I think Jesus has for us. See,

the soil of your heart is receiving the seed of the Word of God,

even now as we're reading it together, even now as we have God's

truth before us, the soil of our hearts is receiving his truth. It's

soil test time. Then, as we read through this description. Now I

want to say this, this is a test for your own hearts. Right,

many of you, hopefully most of you in this room, are those

who count Jesus's savior. Your hope is sure, it is firm in him,

and praise the Lord for that. And at the same time, we

know that we have time of stumbling. We know that we get distracted by

the things of this world. We know that we get caught up in sin,

and that we live lives of repentance. Right, that is the course

of our life and what Jesus calls us to. And so it's right to

have these times when Scripture talks about things not going well in a person's life,

where we evaluate and says it are there aspects of that in my life

that I need to give attention to right now, you're seeking to be a

faithful disciple. But but isn't it also kind to Jesus to give us these

pictures so that we can understand those that we would want to disciple, that

we would want to here for that we would want to instruct in the ways

of faithfulness. He has that for us in this way as well. So

let's do some some testing, some right soil testing to better understand what Jesus,

who knows hearts, would have us to understand. We want to test

for things like hardness. That's the first place that the seed falls on,

right, a place of hardness, compactedness, test for hardness. Oh my

goodness, my goodness, what do we see here? The birds? Who

are they? It's the devil. It's the devil who who loves hard hearts.

It's an easy scoop for him when the word comes and lands in a

place like that of just being quickly carried away, not something that we maybe

think about too often. And for sure, it's not that we need to

live lives of just constantly being on the edge of our seats, wondering if

the devil is a close at hand, and if he's gonna win, or

Jesus is gonna win. It's not like that, But it's the reality that

the devil is active in this world, and when the seed of the word

falls on hard hearts, the devil loves to pull that away. It's an

easy scoop for him. Now, this is, of course, by default,

the way that we come into this world with hearts not ready to receive.

We enter as rebels into this world. But at the same time,

we know that over the course of life there's things that we're engaging that can

move our hearts into more hardness based upon how we're even reacting to things.

We can let hurts which are very real, which are going to be constant

in our lives. We can let hurts or or sourness over life disappointments.

Anybody been disappointed in anything over the summer yet, Yeah, I bet you

have. But we can let life disappointment, sourness over that, or even

a kind of intellectualism that some have that breeds a kind of missiveness of Jesus,

where we think our own minds, we've got it. It's good.

Who needs Jesus Because we're smart, right, and I hang with smart people

that can be something that can characterize a hard heart a hard mind. We're

going to engage with those things and have some of those doubts along the way,

and feel some of these life disappointments that if we're not careful, can

bend us towards a kind of hardness of heart where we need to afresh,

say, I need to go from clutching bitterness or resentment that I just want

to hold on to as I'm disappointed and things of this life into a place

where we're tender and instead we're holding onto we're clutching Jesus, who died for

sinners like you, for sinners like me, and who has life everlasting for

all who are his own, to come to that place regularly reminding ourselves of

that truth. He's the object of belief that you need if you're here and

you haven't trusted in Christ as Savior, as Lord is King, as treasure

of your life. He's the object of the belief that you need in the

way of salvation that hard hearts simply don't have. Well, this is part

of what Jesus says, Listen up, understand this, be all ears for

this. Understand to understand these soils. So we want to test for hardness.

We could also test for rootlessness, right, test for rootlessness. We

could put it that way. This is the picture of the rocky soil,

right the seed falling there. You know, most people, as you think

about it, they're not entirely initially opposed to the idea of Jesus and heaven.

I mean, there's a lot that sounds great about it, right,

Like eternal bliss, life, everlasting, no more of those life disappointments or

hurts or sorrow sounds really good. And indeed there's sometimes for I'm kind of

a quick sprouting of yeah, yeah, that sounds great. I want to

engage with that Jesus. And but what about what about for people out there

or people right here? You know, for us, what about those times

when we have to make sacrificial decisions, sacrificial decisions where saying yes to Jesus

in some form comes with bigger consequences or worldly losses, And we're really wanting

to deal with those times of testing that come. How do we engage those

It's subtle sometimes sometimes it's super overt, and other times it's like, I'm

just not quite sure how to navigate this, and we need to have a

testing of our hearts to say, God, am Am, I malluable to

you in every way as I'm faced with these temptations to to not give my

all for you and instead put my hope and other securities of life, or

or live by fear when I'm not quite sure what's going to happen if I

make this choice to give my all for Jesus, Will you trust him?

Will I trust him to take better care of you in the long run than

the world. Will doesn't always feel like that at first, does it.

But who holds our hearts, who holds our lives? Who holds our eternities?

No one but Jesus. So if there's some measure where you're you're feeling

a level of disappointment with life, maybe disappointment with Jesus, even maybe you

need to to reoient, re orient your understanding, even of the Gospel itself.

Let that fall afresh on you where you say, oh, yeah,

my greatest need isn't my securities in this world. My greatest need is not

just having a better life that is more comfortable for me. My greatest need

is Jesus Savior, king over my heart, king over my life, king

over this universe, the one who who has eternal life for all who are

his, and the one who has saved me unto good works that I should

do, evidencing the salvation that I say that I have. That's the hope

of the gospel right there. And sometimes a lot of other things get mixed

in with it, and there's a kind of rootlessness that people can have as

they would hear the good news, but then that they find out there's more

to it than that, and then we can get caught up in those things

as well. Refresh yourself with the truth of the gospel. So test for

hardness, test for rootlessness, but then also test for crowdedness. We'll call

it test for crowdedness. And this is the image of the thorns, right

the thorny soil. And honestly, this is probably my biggest concern for many

of us here in this room today, including myself, biggest concern I think

right here on this one. The thorny soil as it is is described,

because the cares, the riches, the pleasures of life that can really encompass

a lot. Right we live in that space where we can give a lot

of attention to the things that are part of just daily living and responsibilities that

we have. But what can happen along the way. We can take oftentimes

the good gifts that God gives, and we begin to start drowning in those

things, right we start, we start drowning in the things that can end

up choking out our hope in Jesus, our faith in Him. Is there

some measure of that happening in your life even right now? The cares,

riches, pleasures of life getting crowded, getting crowded for you as you would

seek to be fully devoted, hoping alone in Jesus. Any drowning their crowdedness.

That's happening as you're called to prioritize devotion to and contentedness in Jesus instead

of succumbing to the temptation of letting other things crowd that out. Let's take

each of these in turn. Jesus gives us some descriptions there, Let's just

think about them for a second. How about the cares, the cares of

life, my goodness, responsibilities to worries about family, about friends, about

all our stuff that we've bought, houses, we own cars, we're seeking

to maintain nicer cars that we would like to have these cares of life,

responsibilities that aren't bad in and of themselves to steward well, can overtake our

hearts, the affections of our souls, to where the things that we're meant

to own and steward end up more and more owning us. We become kind

of under their thumb instead of those things in our area of responsibility that we're

tending to faithfully, cares of life to hard to wisely navigate all of that

sometimes right, because God's called us to be responsible attendant to people, to

the things that He's given to us. How about riches? The riches?

Now, all of us always like to say, well, you know,

I'm not really not rich, so do I really need to worry about this

temptation? Well, you know, Jesus is giving us something that isn't necessarily.

I mean, think about all the people on the shore. They weren't

at that place either, and the disciples who were gathering around him that had

left everything to follow Jesus. Now that the riches is this kind of aiming

for the comfortable life, the aiming for the comfortable life both now having the

things that I want to to enjoy and be comfortable in and maybe later as

we as we think about those those later years towards retirement and the twilight years,

as we might call them, comfort in that time again tricky, right,

because through growing affluence there can there can be a right kind of attending

to these things. But the cares of this world and the love of riches,

where we're saying, like, ah, that's my aim. I'm just

putting my efforts there. This is where my comfort is found in having my

riches secure for me. I'm comfortable in that place. Somewhere along the way,

the crowding out, the crowding out of Christ himself, the word of

God from our lives. How about the pleasures pleasures of life? Many of

those to think about as well. I think what maybe Jesus partly hasn't in

mind here, and especially maybe for our context kind of situating oneself, a

situating of oneself, or for entergy attainment or get away maximization. Oh,

we like those things, don't we. We like to anticipate things, We

like to have vacations, We like to just look forward to the weekend.

We like weekend getaways. All of those things not necessarily bad eno of themselves.

I just enjoyed a vacation a couple of weeks ago, super thankful to

the Lord for it, and yet it can be what I start living for

AND's the next one of those when do I get to have that, the

cares, the riches, the pleasures of life. And as I was thinking

about this and preparing this message, you know, I started to think about

how you and me and Cares we've got too close of a relationship. Can

if you identify with that, Cares and I we have too close of a

relationship. And partly that's because of even and call it how I'm wired or

whatever, I tend to just be always solving problems in this head of mine.

There's always something to tend to. There's a project, there's an issue,

and I like to think of, like how do we get from A

to Z to that being better? Now? That's a blessing sometimes and a

curse all too often as well. Right as I let myself get consumed with

those things, I'm wrapped up in those things. There's no room for enjoying

Jesus, because I've got to solve problems. Cares and I have too close

of a relationship sometimes, and I have to ask myself, well, I

worshipfully, work hard, yes on projects at home and at the office here

and then and then rest and rest and trust my Lord, or just get

eaten up by those things where I keeped on turning it over and over in

my mind. Past couple of weeks, we had some car issues that we

needed to attend to, and I go into YouTube mechanic mode. That's what

I do. And there's an issue to be solved here, and I watch

all of the YouTube clips and I price out all of the parts, and

I start making those decisions of am I going to put my hands on this

and try to attend to this, or am I going to hire it done?

All of those things, and it starts just welling up in me,

and I'm like, oh, I gotta I gotta figure out a way forward

with this all consuming. And I was reminded again, now, no,

it's it's good to be a good steward, But what do I really need.

My hope is in Jesus for the outcomes of things, and so honey,

to rest in Him and let that inform the way forward that I take.

So even if most of you, and probably it's the case most of

you aren't in the final judgment on that final day found to be one of

these three soils. Jesus still means for us to evaluate and heed warnings and

grow immaturity and understand how to disciple others. Right, good soil testing is

wise for us to do. So where do you? Where do I?

Where do we need to seek wisdom? What sins do we need to confess

as we really evaluate things like the cares, the riches, pleasures of life,

and where our hope might be too firmly fixed there? What do we

need to confess? Where do we need to change priorities because the life that

we put together for ourselves is not helping us to maximize our treasuring of Jesus.

Where's that the case? Well, I think we'll be helped in sorting

some of those things out, even through just a few minutes of studying the

final soil, the good soil, where Jesus essentially tells us there to I'll

put it this way, root for fruit, root for fruit, verse fifteen.

Let me read it for us again, as for that in the good

soil, the seed that fell there, they are those who, hearing the

word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart. And bear fruit

with patience. So root for fruit. Now, of course, I don't

mean by this that you should dig in the ground expecting to find apples,

not that kind of root for fruit. I don't mean that you should be

a cheerleader for fruit. Yay fruit, I root for you, or maybe

even like some sort of a reversal of the counseling fruit to root diagram that

many of you are familiar with. Not that either. No root for fruit

is more the idea of letting the word sink in rooted in our hearts,

fully committed to it, unto fruit bearing in our lives when the temptation comes,

instead to let those overwhelming to patients towards bitterness, towards detaching ourselves to

the cares of life, love of riches, or prioritization of pleasure when those

things want to hold this way. Now, Jesus talks about this in a

in an interesting way. Is his final word there is with patience, right

with patience. That's important for us to see there because the promise is that

through rootedness of truth, the fruit of the spirit will come. You'll start

to see, You'll start to see bits of things like love and joy and

peace, and patience and kindness, you know the rest and many more.

It's not an exhaustive list. There those things start to come out in our

lives and the ways that we're interacting with others. The fruitfulness of the word

is having effect, and how it's changing our lives and our works show more

and more that Jesus is king of our lives. That happens. But what

is it? What does it take? Because maybe it's really tiny at first,

maybe we can hardly even see it at first. Jesus says that we

hold the word in this way, but with what with patience? With patience,

he says, this is a is a tough one for us, right

instantaneous, I like my things fast, microwave, please, with patience,

Jesus says, with patience, it's that's how these things are produced. So

how how do we do this? How do we take the seed of the

word as we're even hearing it this morning and then as you'll do throughout the

days of your your life, even this week? How do you hold it

fast in an honest and good heart for that long term rooting unto fruit bearing?

How do we do this? Well, there's a spiritual discipline's book that

I really enjoy. It's it's my favorite among them by David mathis called Habits

of Grace. Maybe mentioned some of you before. I've even read it with

a few of you early on in my time here Habits of Grace, and

in this book, I think it's particularly helpful because he gives three main categories

to consider when he's talking about the spiritual disciplines of the Christian life. Three

main categories, and the first one quite simply is just hear his voice.

Hear his voice what we've been talking about. But we want to be those

who are giving ourselves to the steady intake of scripture, where we say this

is life for me, this is food for my day. This is the

bath that I need to take in the scriptures. I need that for my

life in a continual way. Here his voice. It's been encouraging to see

the summer many of you are reading through the New Testament and that together in

the word study program that we have here. And I know that the guys

are doing it. I see the group me and all of the things that

are being talked about there, and the ladies I know have one as well.

And he might be like, oh, I'm too late. We're into

the summer. Well, guess what. You can still go into the church

center, app right, now, go to church events, tap on together

in the Word, and just jump in. Just jump in. It's okay.

You can read the earlier stuff in the New Testament later, it'll be

fine. Jump in and gauge with something like together in the Word, or

some other way of having a steady intake of the scriptures that it might have

its work in your soul towards the production of fruit over the long haul.

Here his voice, David matthis would put it that way. And then he

has another cluster that hed this calls have his ear, have his ear.

And as you might imagine, he's calling us, according to the scriptures,

to set aside time to pray, to pray. God has said, I'm

listening. I invite you to pray to me. We have our father's ear.

We should be going to him in concert with the Word, the things

that we're reading here and then throughout the day and conversation with him. That

is hard. We're forgetful. We're forgetful, right, And let me just

say it's okay. If your next step when you leave here, this this

afternoon is you go and you put up some sticky notes at different places in

your house that just say something like pray, or some note cards that you

would carry around or with you and take to work and having different spots there,

or an app on your phone that for a while just reminds you at

certain increments of the day to go before the Lord in prayer. That's all

fair game. You can do those. You're not cheating if you use a

tool. No, you're smart if you do. Okay, you're faithful if

you do. And then finally the last cluster, he just puts it this

way. Belong belong to his body, belong to his body. In other

words, make the gatherings of the church a priority. So encouraging to see

your faces here this morning. Make the gatherings of the church a priority.

Sunday morning's key for that. Obviously, if you're plugged in here a small

group, that would you would say that's a calendar item for me as well,

I'm going to be faithful to make sure my calendar is populated with my

small group events. Right. Another tool I would encourage you in that to

where it's like, oh, I know when small group is coming I'm not

even counting on my small group leader in mind me because lo and behold the

calendar there it is. It is for me so that I can make sure

that I know what's going on. It takes diligence, right, It's not

just about life happening to us, but engaging a way forward to be with

his body, to say, oh, it is important for me to be

among the people of God. The hard thing is again patience here, right,

patience. Not every gathering just appears on the surface to be early life

changing for us, right, but a couple of things with that. It's

not ultimately just about me and how thrilling it is to be a part of

that. No, we're involved in the giving and receiving of ministry life here

together. And even if it's almost indistinguishable from the day before, But having

come to a gathering of the saints, you have point one percent greater maturity

towards fruit bearing in your life. That's good. This is part of the

patient process that we're engaged in over the course of a lifetime of God doing

his work in his people, partly through the gathering of them together, just

like we're doing here this morning.