Good Ground | Ps. Maegan Pittman

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

Thank you so much for listening today.

We hope it encourages you and inspires you.

Here's today's message.

Hello.

Hi everyone.

I'm so glad you're here.

Um, love my amazing husband.

Thank you for the kind words.

You're always lifting me up and encouraging me and pushing me to do what God is calling me to do.

Which I could sit behind a rock and just talk to people, but God has more for me to do for his kingdom.

Amen.

What we do for God is never easy.

He always pulls us out of our comfort zone.

But when we do it, do it in obedience and not reluctantly, as I often do.

So I am so glad you guys are here.

I know like sometimes it takes a lot to get in here on a Sunday, and sometimes our weeks can be so crazy, and we could have gone through so many different things in chaos throughout the week, but you chose to be here.

You chose to see God and prioritize Him in the middle of busyness and the chaos.

So I thank you for that.

I commend you on that.

We're so thankful for our online audience who tuned in, tunes in every Sunday.

Thank you for always tuning in.

Even when you can't make the building, uh, you are prioritizing God.

So we appreciate that.

Um, before we go over the scriptures, I just want to give you a little background context of what we're talking about.

People came from everywhere to see Jesus, and they wanted to see him, but they also came to hear him.

And what he would do, as he often did, was told a parable to his listeners.

And his parables were earthly stories with heavenly meanings.

And here's what I know Jesus took the ordinary, everyday people, activities, and he put them in a story format so that they were, his listeners were taught a valuable kingdom principle that used the familiar to explain the unfamiliar.

As you know, parables sometimes you're like, what is he talking about?

Well, he was dropping bars and poems back then when it wasn't popular, but he did it in a way so that he can explain to them in a way that they could relate to.

The scripture that we're going to, if you have your Bibles, is Luke 8, 4 through 8.

And if you don't have your Bible, there's gonna be a Bible in the sky.

Um, it says, And when a great multitude had gathered and they had come to him from every city, he spoke by a parable.

A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it.

And some fell on a rock, and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture.

And some fell among the thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it.

But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.

And when he had said these things, he cried, He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Today I want to take a moment and talk about the vital aspect of a flourishing life, and it's called sowing and reaping.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for your word today.

I pray that you increase in me so I can decrease.

I pray that you speak to your people and that they have open hearts to hear you, open hearts to receive you, and open hearts to do what you are calling them to do.

I pray that every word that is spoken, that it goes on good ground, it's in your name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Okay, well, I've come to know that as it relates to learning, you either like it or you love it.

And the difference between liking something is like, oh, it's okay, I like specific things, or I like this or that.

Loving something means, oh man, this person, they read like a book every two weeks, they can read a book in a week.

They like really like absorb absorbing information, just tons of information.

They love to read, they love to absorb that.

So for me, growing up, I know one of my moments where I felt like I didn't learn, I didn't want to learn something was in middle school.

So in middle school, I had um, I just didn't have the focus, I didn't have the drive.

I um wanted to have fun with my friends, I just wanted to hang kind of, you know.

So I was really exhibiting uh what people talk about today for colleges is C's get degrees, right?

It was okay getting the C.

I was okay with it.

As long as I was having fun, that means I had to pay attention minimally, and um and and that worked for a little bit.

You know, it worked for a little bit.

I didn't want to hear what the teacher was saying, I didn't want to read the things that were in the book, I just wanted to get by.

And so, fast forward to high school, when I went to high school, I had something to focus on, and that was track.

And if you any of you know, Jamaicans love to run track.

That is our thing.

We're good at it, we love doing it.

So I was excited about doing track when I entered into high school.

But one of the requirements is you have to have a certain GPA, right?

You gotta have that GPA to play sports.

So I was like, oh man, I'm really gonna have to like pay attention.

I'm gonna have to learn and apply what I'm learning to my test and my classwork and and all of those things.

Like, I'm really gonna have to learn now.

And uh, and so I was like, okay, let's do this.

And I'm telling you, the moment I decided to change my heart and the posture of my heart to be able to receive what I needed.

Not only do I know if that's gonna spring fruit in the in the future, I may be able to use what I'm learning in the future, but it was helping me now.

And now I was making like honorall, I was excelling, I was excelling in track, and everything was good.

But when I sold little, I reaped little.

And when I began to sow more, I got the benefits of that.

And here's what I know I know that we all can be like that at times, but it is the our posture that determines our growth.

And so in this parable that we're talking about about the sower who has to sow his seed, he went out to do that.

And the reason why Jesus talked to them in a parable is because it was something that they could relate to at that time because it was an agricultural uh society at that time.

And when I started doing research on furrows, it says that they're defined as a long, narrow trench made in the ground by a plow used specifically for planting seeds or for irrigation.

And after the furrows were dug, that's when the farmers would come out and sow the seeds or plant the seeds in the ground by scattering them, perhaps like from like a donkey or something like that, you know, you're just chucking them around.

But remember that they are narrow.

So when things are narrow, everything is not gonna get in there.

Some I'm sure, you know, did not land in in the hole or anything like that, but I know they had to have a little faith that some would be landing in there.

Uh, the other ones, they're not gonna spring up.

So without the assistance of modern technology, you know, you can't be as accurate when you're sowing the seeds.

And so in verse 11, as we go further down in a text, we're gonna talk about the different kinds of seeds, the seeds that were planted in different soils of ground.

And so in verse 11, it talks about the seed representing the word of God.

So the seed is the word of God, and then the soil represented different kinds of people and different hearts.

And so he was very clear that the seed had nothing to do with the seed itself, you know, sowing it.

It really didn't have to do with the seed itself, it had to do with where the seed landed.

It's the soil that determines whether or not there will be a crop.

So we reap what we sow, but we also reap where we sow.

That matters because if God's word of God in us is not working in our life, then we have to see where the seed was sown.

Where did it land?

The soil of your heart needs to be receptive to the seed for you to experience a spiritual change and growth in your life.

So that means you have to go in.

If you if your heart is receptive, you're open-minded, you're open to whatever God has for you.

You don't have your preconceived notions up, you're going in saying, God, whatever you have to make for me, I'm gonna be willing and open-minded for that.

And in verse 12, now we're gonna see where some of the seeds landed, which again represents our heart and represents people.

And so it talks about some interpretations, they normally talk about it falling on the wayside or the path or the same thing.

But the seed fell on the path, and this represented the person whose heart was hard.

It was a person who had a hardened heart.

And with hardened hearts, they're not open and receptive to God's word.

They actually fight against it.

It's then when the devil comes in and he wants to distract you from receiving God's word.

Case in point, I know a lot of times when uh I've seen people and they've been in ministry and they really want to give their life to Christ, and it's something in them, they get the word of God in them and they're excited, and they're like, I'm not gonna raise my hand.

What does this commit me to?

Is this gonna make me change who I am overnight?

Is this gonna, is this gonna be something that's gonna be bad for me?

I don't know what to do with that.

And so they harden themselves, they don't raise their hand, and they walk out saying, Yeah, I feel okay about that.

But God wants more for you.

He wants you to give your life over to him for his glory.

And we're receiving that like when you get a word from God and the enemy tries to steal it just like the birds devoured the seeds, the enemy wants that for you.

So he'll try to steal it before it even takes root in your heart.

And what we know is that salvation, it has two parts to it it has eternity and it has deliverance.

So your heart can be hardened from accepting God as your personal savior, and it can be hardened from being delivering, delivered from our sins and all of that.

And so a lot of times we'll go in saying, Man, I I'm struggling with this.

I'll wait until I get right before I go to God's house.

I'll wait before I step in.

I'm I'm too embarrassed, I'm full of shame.

I'm not gonna go into God's house until I'm I'm I'm ready.

But no, God, that's where He wants you.

He wants you in a place where you need to totally surrender.

He wants you in a place where you feel you don't feel so secure in that, and he wants to change you.

A lot of times we can't change ourselves with our own strength, but once we surrender to God, he helps us to walk through it.

Amen.

In verse 13, it talks about the rocks representing the person whose seed fell on the rocks.

And so, I don't know, like when you when you plant, I'm not I'm not good, I don't have a green thumb or anything like that.

Um, but if a seed falls on some rocks, I'm sure that's gonna, it's not gonna grow to its full potential.

It's not gonna have any root.

I believe that for a while that people who have that and they sow the seed that way, they'll fall away in a time of testing.

Because even with rocks, they're going through different temperatures and all that kind of stuff.

But when the testing comes, what do we do with that?

When hard things come like this week, I mean, personally for myself, I felt like the devil was like really challenging me.

I felt like he was coming from all angles.

I felt like I was looking at the news and looking at this the war that was coming on.

I I was trying to do my message.

I felt like it was so many different distractions personally and ministry-wise.

And I literally yesterday like broke down and I was like, I I cannot, I don't know why the word is here, and it's I'm not receiving it in my heart.

And I had prayed about it, I had did all of these things, like I I had worship music on, I had, you know, I tried to pray out loud, and I was like, why do I feel this way?

And my husband came in the room and he said, Why don't you get up out of bed?

Get out of bed, go ahead and walk around and praise God.

Put on your music, I put my ears in, and I just walked around.

And let me tell you, it didn't work the first time, but the second time that I did it, it worked.

And what I'm saying for you guys is no matter what, when you are going through something that's hard and something is Charles and everything is coming your way, praise him anyway.

Keep doing it until God gives you the breakthrough.

Because that's what happened for me yesterday.

I could have stayed where I was at, I could have stayed being defeated, and the enemy just tormented me and not wanting me to move forward with my message.

But guess what?

When I got back up, God put a peace over me.

I began to shout unto God, I began to praise him like never before.

I was stronger.

He gave me a peace that surpasses all understanding.

He gave me strength when I didn't have it myself.

So, what I'm saying for you is when you're going through difficult times, don't give up when you don't feel it the first time.

Because God is always waiting.

He's wanting to see if we can endure, if we can press through.

And when we press through, we will see the fruit of what God has for us.

And even in those trials, he'll give us a joy that the world can't give and the world can't take away.

Amen.

Further down in the text in verse 14, it talks about the seed being um fallen among thorns.

And the ground with thorns represents a person whose spiritual growth is choked out with the worries, the riches, and the pleasures of life.

And as a result, they won't produce mature fruit.

So again, I was talking about the worries of life, but there's always the pleasures.

It's like, man, you know, Orlando is good for events, and they're always on what?

A Sunday.

All of the farmers markets, all of the things, they're on Sundays.

They're distractions, and sometimes they'll they'll come up so much, especially for here, what we have to fight for, specifically for here, um, is man, these things that will distract us for the word of God.

So when we get the root of that seed in our hearts, but all this stuff, these distractions and stuff like that, will take us away from God, will take us away from serving Him.

Remember this: if the devil can't hinder you with difficulties, he'll choke you out with distractions.

He'll choke you out with those distractions.

Regardless, you don't want your growth to stall because of the cares of this world, the fun like I had in middle school, the worries that I had yesterday.

All of those things, you don't want those things to choke you out or stall you for what God wants to do in you and the righteous fruit that He wants to put in you.

But I you know what I love?

I love the seed that fell on good ground in verse 15.

The good ground, we want good ground, right?

We want the word of God to be able to change us and transform us and do all these things.

A lot of times we come into church and we can have this good message, and tomorrow the busyness of life would distract us from God.

We actually put him last because guess what?

We got so much going on, and I am guilty of that.

I think all of us have so many things, especially if you have children, balancing out your days.

It's a lot.

But if we prioritize him first, the things that we need to get to, he'll give us the margin to be able to do that if we prioritize him first.

When we keep him last, guess what?

The struggles of the day has worn on us.

We're stressed out, we're depressed, we're angry, we're short-tempered.

All of the things because guess what?

God was last.

We didn't seek him first for the strength to get through the day.

We didn't seek him first for our personalities to do that.

Even when I got up this morning, I was like, I did not sleep that well last night.

And guess what?

I said, This is the day that the Lord has made.

I will rejoice and be glad at it.

And I had to keep saying that until I actually felt it.

Like the word of God is not for us just to read it and it to transform how we feel in that moment.

We have to continually, repeatedly say it until we believe it, until God takes that thing off of us and transforms us in that moment.

I could have given up yesterday.

I could have given in to how I felt and stayed in the pity party.

I could have.

But I said, okay, I'm gonna get up and try this thing called Get Up and Do It Again and see if God is gonna be real in that moment.

I'm telling you, in that worship that I had yesterday, it was the words that I was exactly going through.

I just put random songs from Maverick City and put them on, and I'm telling you, it was the words that I needed in that moment.

So when you praise him, he'll give you the words, he'll give you a scripture or something to encourage you in that moment.

The good ground represents those who heard the word with an honest and good heart, held on to it, endured, and produced fruit in their lives.

This is the kind of believer that gladly receives God and his word honestly.

This person holds on and embraces the word tightly and perseveres in obedience with it.

In other words, you know, they're not gonna be a fairywell weather Christian.

You know, I know different seasons where I could have been that because guess what?

I was so distracted by everything else.

But what God wants for us is to be consistent.

So today, if I'm fired up about God and I'm fired about a message that He has spoken to me, guess what?

I'm gonna do my best.

I didn't say perfection, I said I'm going to do my best to make sure that I keep that fire lit.

Because guess what?

Fires burn out.

If we don't keep lighting it, it burns out.

And so the word of God is that for us.

It is that burning fire that we'll continue to get from the Holy Spirit that we can't do in our own strength.

The good ground Christian consistently endures and bears fruit as his character and conduct are transformed as he lives in obedience to God's word.

So here's the here's the thing: we can get the seed of God's word, but our character has to be the thing that's gonna transform us from the inside out.

So if we're looking at the word of God and we're not changing, that is a problem.

We're not gonna bear good fruit.

The seed is just gonna fall by the wayside.

Our character matters, you guys.

People are watching us, even as Christians, they give us even more scrutiny.

They're like, oh, she's a Christian?

You know, and then I'm not talking about being perfect again.

I'm talking about constantly looking in the word and seeing if our characteristics line up with that.

Are we exhibiting the fruits of the spirits?

Patience, being loving, long-suffering.

Who wants to be long-suffering?

And the traffic that you get into, I poor.

They have that toll roll now, and I feel like it still doesn't help.

I don't know about you, but it is a chore.

It is a chore every day, but we have a choice every day to exhibit the characteristics of Christ.

We have a choice.

God gave Adam and Eve choice in the garden to make their decisions.

We have a choice each day to make decisions that are good or bad.

And so we want the seed of the word of God to not just penetrate us, but to be on a good heart, to be in a good posture, to be able to receive all that God has for us and who he wants us to be.

And with that, we still have to confess our sins.

If we're not confessing our sins and we're showing up every day, we're showing up every Sunday, we're praying, we have worship, we're trying to be the good Christian or have the good characteristics, or we're not repenting.

For things that we have done, it can be hard for us to move forward.

That is almost like a hardened heart.

I would say, even for myself, just personally, I didn't grow up like seeing apologies and stuff like that.

So shout out, I still work on that with my kids.

My kids are a great example of, man, I need to apologize because that's what Jesus would want me to do.

Man, I need to forgive faster because that's what Jesus would want me to do.

Man, I need to love harder, even if somebody doesn't love back, because that's my responsibility as a Christian.

What are the things that I can do better?

Not what somebody else can do better.

Because when I prayed and I'm like, God, gnash their teeth.

Like it doesn't work.

It doesn't work.

It doesn't work.

God slowly begins to change you.

I remember I was had this crazy boss, and um, I went to this pastor and I was like, hey, give me um, can you help me?

She's like, read the scripture every day.

And I was like, Well, I'm not blessing her.

She doesn't need to be blessed.

She's talking down to me.

Why should I bless her with this prayer?

And slowly but surely, I was praying over her every day, and God changed me.

He didn't necessarily change her, but what he did, he gave me a softened heart.

And when I had that softened heart, I was able to see her in her brokenness and why she does the things that she does.

And that didn't change me.

You know, it changed me, but it didn't change her.

But guess what?

I was okay with that.

I was okay with that because I was like, okay, God, she's broken.

This is where I can pray for her.

This is how I can pray specifically for her, because God gave me a filter that He uses to be able to see her.

I didn't get it on my own, He had to give that to me.

And so that's what we have to do.

We have to work on our characteristics.

If we want good ground, we have to have repent of our sins, we have to receive the word of God and be obedient to it.

The good ground in your life can be caught cultivated by being teachable.

Be teachable.

For me, um, I would say we went out with a friend of ours at my daughter's birthday party, and um learning new foods is not my thing.

So you guys in here with the eclectic palettes, uh I admire you.

I really do.

Like I had like um, I think it was eel.

Um, eel was the on the menu.

And okay, I'm like, I have like one of those hardened hearts when it comes to stuff like clams and eel and snails and stuff like that.

I literally reject it every single time, almost like when the seed fell on the wayside.

I don't even open my mind up.

I'm not open-minded, I don't open up and say, hey, I'm gonna try that, you know.

But I could be learning something new, you know, something new that can change the way that I expand my palate.

And so I learned in that moment, like even in this text, when I read that, I was like, am I teachable?

Am I teachable in this area?

Because we think we're teachable in other things, but is it in every area of our life?

Um, it says, be obedient.

Be obedient.

Man, this is a hard one.

Right?

That requires us to really evaluate ourselves, and when God gives us an assignment to do it, do it.

For Keith and I, when we moved to DC, I literally was like, I don't think God is calling us there.

You know, but I hardened my heart.

If I could be honest, I hardened my heart because I was like, I don't think he called us there.

And Keith was like, No, I believe he called us there.

You need to pray about it.

And so I I went ahead and I started to pray about it.

Didn't know what my reason was, didn't know what the purpose of you know us moving, uprooting our whole family and our brand new house that we absolutely love, um, that we just built and we only lived in it for a year.

Didn't know that obedience was going to be required when you accept God's call on your life.

And I prayed about it, and God showed me that there was a purpose for me to do it.

And when we got there, I got to see what the purpose was.

But if I hardened my heart and I wasn't teachable, I listened to my husband.

He's I was like, if we said, pray about it, let's pray about it.

I prayed about it, and God spoke to me.

So when you have agreement, especially when you have a husband and wife couple or a couple, and you have agreement, then you have peace in that decision.

Instead of me following what God told him, I specifically listened to what he said and I prayed about it myself to make sure that we were in alignment with the same thing.

It doesn't mean that I agree with everything my husband does.

I do need to pray about it.

And so, and I trust my husband, I do trust him.

So I went ahead and did that, and we he shouted his own self out.

Can I help him up first?

What's your humility?

That's one of the characteristics.

Um, but truly, I knew what our assignment was once we did it.

Once we did it, I understood it.

And you never understand what God's will is for your life versus even earlier when I thought that I had it all right in high school or middle school.

I wanted to do what I wanted to do.

And in these moments when you're like, oh, let me be attached to the material things.

I love the material things, I love where I live.

But when it requires obedience, you will never regret that.

There was so much fruit that came from that, so much relationships, so much building up of the kingdom that we did in DC, and I would never take that for granted.

And the other part of cultivating good ground in your life is to be patient.

Patience.

You know, when we got into ministry and we rededicated our lives back to Christ, there's so much in the Bible.

You want to know so many things.

You feel like you're ill-equipped, you feel like, oh my gosh, the Bible is so overwhelming.

And it is still to this day.

It's overwhelming.

All the concepts, you're trying to get them down, these parables, you're like, Jesus, what are you talking about?

I didn't live back then, now I gotta do research.

Um, but what one of the things that I did like that Keith did is when he went into ministry, he was patient with the process.

He asked God, okay, what a salvation?

Why do we get baptized?

Why do we have to be obedient?

What was your purpose of this?

What was the purpose of you dying on the cross?

He asked specific questions and was patient with the process.

And as God continued to sow the seed on our hearts, he just continued to research, continued to grow, continued to seek, and he found the Lord.

As he continued to seek, there was more revelation.

Be patient with the process.

Even when you're teachable, you can go in looking at the word of God saying, I know that part about it.

How about if God wants to reveal something deeper today?

He may reveal something new.

A lot of times we read the passages, we're like, How did I miss that?

This this was plain.

If we're not teachable, we're not obedient, and we're not patient with the process, we're missing steps on flourishing in our spiritual growth and in our natural growth.

With every head bowed, let's pray.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for today.

I thank you for every seed that has been sown in our lives and the seeds that were planted today.

May we never be content with what you have shown us and what you continue to show us.

Remove the hardened hearts that are in this building today, Lord God.

Let us be open-minded to receive everything that you have for us.

Let us transform our minds, transform our hearts, transform us into who you called us to be.

Let no seeds fall on amongst the thorns, amongst the rocky ground, along the wayside.

Let the seeds be planted in our hearts on good soil.

I pray that you continue to change us and that when we leave here, we will never be the same, that we will never take any opportunity that you have for us or moment to be able to worship you and to give you our all.

You've done so much for us, Lord God, and you continue to do that.

I pray that as we go forward, that you will encourage us, that we will not feel shame when we make a mistake, that we will get back up, repent, and keep going.

I thank you for what you're gonna do in our hearts today.

Seal this word.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

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