Cultivate: A Shallow Heart | Part 3

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Great to be with you.

If we've not met, I'm Ryan and thrilled, absolutely thrilled to have you join us today.

This, I don't really have any place for this to fit, but um TikTok is banned.

I just was curious what you're gonna do with all that extra time.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Think about it.

Um Friday, January 10th is known as Quitter's Day.

The second Friday in January is called Quitter's Day.

It's widely recognized as the day many people give up their New Year's resolutions.

Studies show only about 8% of people actually achieve their New Year's resolution.

The term Quitter's Day first originated and was popularized by Strava, that social network for athletes.

Analyzed over 31.5 million uh global January activities, and they identified the second Friday in January as the day when motivation significantly declines.

We're in a series called Cultivate, The Secret to Spiritual Growth.

And we've been wrestling and talking about this question.

How do you experience growth that truly lasts?

How do you experience growth that sustains and doesn't wane through the emotions and motivations that you feel?

You know, we long for it, we see it, but it feels like it can be fleeting or just beyond our grasp.

Um, Jesus gave an incredible parable.

A parable is just a story with a point or a purpose to it, and and Jesus gives this parable and he gives us the secret to spiritual growth.

It's called the Parable of the Soils, and we've been working our way through this parable.

And he he tells about a farmer that that has some seed and and he begins to scatter it, and he scatters it everywhere, generously, liberally.

He says, The farmer represents God and who's generous and scatters it.

And he says, the seed actually represents the word of God.

And as he scatters it, it lands on four different types of soil, a path where the birds come and eat it.

It doesn't have a chance to take root.

Then it lands on rocky soil and it sprouts up quickly, but it can't survive the harsh sun and it withers and dies.

It lands among the thorns and it grows, but it gets choked out, and then eventually it lands on good soil.

Good soil, Jesus tells us it produces a harvest one single seed, 30, 60, or even a hundred times what was sown or planted.

And here's the whole point, Jesus is saying, good seed plus good soil equals an exponential harvest.

Good seed, and Jesus says you have good seed, you have the word of God, plus good soil equals an exponential harvest.

Growth that lasts.

Now the inverse is true.

It doesn't matter how good the seed is if the soil is bad.

And so here's what we've been doing.

Good soil doesn't happen by accident, it's cultivated.

And so we're taking time, working our way through each of those soils, and how do we cultivate the soil of our heart?

Because our the soils, Jesus tells us, represents our hearts, the state of the condition of our heart, and our receptivity to God's word.

How do we cultivate the soil of our heart?

And so today we're looking at the rocky soil.

Would you go ahead and say the rocky soil with me?

If you got your Bibles, would you turn to Matthew 13, verse 20?

Matthew 13:20

If you want to just follow along in your notes, it's in there as well.

Jesus explains the rocky soil this way: the seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it.

Say receive.

Receives it with joy.

But since they have no root, say no root.

Yeah, you're with me this morning.

I love it.

They last only a short time.

When trouble or persecution comes, because of the word, they quickly fall away.

Say fall away.

Rocky ground, versus someone who hears the word, receives it with joy.

But because there's no root, there's no depth, when hard times or persecution comes, they fall away.

This last week I just came across Open Door International's uh research on the persecuted church.

Um in 2024, they said 380 million Christians faced high levels of persecution internationally.

One in five in Africa, two in five in the continent of Asia.

200,000 were forced from their homes and into hiding.

7,600 churches were attacked, 4,500 were killed for their faith that we know of.

The most dangerous place to be a Christian in the world, number one most hot place to be a Christian is North Korea, then Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Sudan.

If you want to see the top 50, you can go and see their research there.

Um America didn't make it on the list.

Here's what's interesting, by the way.

Um we talk, some of us do.

Some of us we talk that Silicon Valley is so hard to be a Christian.

And in some ways, I go like, yeah, I don't know that it is.

You know where it's hard to be a Christian?

North Korea, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, where if you found out to be a follower of Christ, you will be imprisoned.

Or worse.

See, I the reality is actually in Silicon Valley, it is not hard to be a Christian.

It's just uncomfortable at times, isn't it?

Today, as we're talking about the rocky soil, I want to talk about, okay, what is a shallow heart?

How do we identify it?

What are the symptoms?

What causes it?

And then what do we do to cultivate a shallow heart?

And this is personal to me.

This is deeply personal.

In July this last year, 2024, uh, it marks 20 years of full-time pastoral ministry for me.

It was exciting.

I'm like, yeah, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

The thing that has grieved my heart more over the last 20 years are those that have come to Christ and have fallen away, have abandoned the one they once passionately so followed, whether it's friends that I grew up with, people in the church who once served and walked away or fell away.

That word fall away means to abandon, to begin to have hostility towards.

And so as we talk about this, let's begin to unpack what is a shallow heart.

Now, when I think about rocky soil, the picture that comes to mind is a rock, right?

Anybody else?

Like, this is like the picture.

I'm like, okay, so there's some rocks in the soil, and you gotta get them out.

And that's what I think when Jesus tells this parable, and yet it's not that picture.

Uh, in fact, it brings a very specific image to mind for the people who are listening to it.

Listen, the landscape of Palestine, many places had a shallow layer of topsoil with a limestone shelf just beneath the surface.

Plants would sprout up quickly, yet the roots couldn't grow deeply to withstand the harsh summer sun.

Now, listen to this.

Farmers often, with the help of community, would spend time clearing the land, removing the rocky terrain underneath.

If a farmer doesn't dig below the surface, the topsoil would have looked like good soil.

And so we're talking about some stuff, friends, that for a lot of us, there's a shelf of limestone, and we got it just a minute.

There's a shelf of limestone here that on the surface and to other people, it just looks like good soil, but our roots can't get deep and can't dig deep.

It just gets stuck, and we, you know, if you get a shovel to it, it's just gonna stop.

Oh, I hope I didn't break that.

Anyways, um, it's just gonna stop.

And you need more than a shovel to break through it, and by the way, you need something like this or even sharper where you're digging at it, and that's painful.

That's hard.

And I just want to give us a heads up that there's gonna be a little bit of convicting things as we go through here because it's breaking through the hard places, that shelf of limestone that we need.

Okay?

Are you with me?

You ready?

All right, here we go.

What is a shallow heart?

A shallow heart begins with passion for Jesus but avoids the deeper work of spiritual formation, clearing barriers, growing roots, building resilience.

It thrives on enthusiasm, but falters under testing, abandoning the faith it once eagerly embraced.

So, what are the symptoms?

How do I know?

How do I begin to discern, test, and to find out where are those shelf of limestone in my own heart?

Personal assessment, first uh uh symptom of a shallow heart.

Jesus is my life coach, not king.

I love the idea of Jesus as my savior and friend, but I resist surrendering every aspect of my life to his lordship.

I tend to follow Jesus' advice when it aligns with my preferences.

But when it requires sacrifice or change, I hold back.

Symptoms of a shallow heart is when feelings fade, so does my faith.

My faith thrives in emotional highs, an amazing worship set or a moving message, but struggles when life gets hard, routine or mundane.

When I don't feel God's presence, I begin to doubt or drift.

And for some, we live from one mountaintop experience to the next, one emotional high to the next.

We we pursue it and run after it.

And and what, friends, mountaintop experiences are wonderful.

Our emotions are meaningful and they matter, and yet we cannot allow our emotions to be the engines of our lives.

And so often life is lived between the mountaintops in the valley places, isn't it?

Um sometimes talk with people, this comes up, it's like, Ryan, you know, when I was a believer, um I used to feel his presence in ways and experience him.

And now I'm just in a season where I can't experience, I'm not experiencing them in that way.

And it's really the process, this is one of the processes of maturity.

Babies go through this.

It's called weaning, by the way.

Babies go through this where you wean a baby off the mother's milk so that what the baby can grow into adulthood and eat food.

It's actually very hard for the baby and traumatic at the beginning, but it's needed.

Uh, my former, well, not former, he was my former boss, but my mentor, he's still my mentor, not my boss anymore.

Um, Pastor, uh, he he said it this way.

He's like, Ryan, when my kids were little, we used to throw a party every time they went on the potty.

You know?

You just throw a party, you give them candy, you're like, whoa, this is amazing.

Now that they're adults, we don't throw parties anymore.

See, because there's some things where God used to show up and he would go and we'd experience him going, yay! And then now we're in that same season, we're like, God, what's going on?

He's like, No, no, no, I'm celebrating other things.

There's maturing, there's other areas where I'm gonna show up and move in your life, but you're stuck back here.

And let's just talk about that word doubt up there for a second.

You know, doubt is part of faith, part of the process.

Because you wrestle doesn't mean that you don't have faith.

In fact, I remember growing up feeling like uh to question or to wrestle with things.

I wasn't able to ask those questions.

And then I went through a really difficult season of doubting.

I was actually studying to be a pastor.

I wasn't an emotional, it was an intellectual.

Spent months and months wrestling, wondering all those big questions around God and Jesus, and is this really real?

I gotta tell you, if you're in that space of doubting, you are not in a bad place at all.

You're in the process of God.

Would you continue to wrestle with him?

Because here's my conviction, and here's what I found out is that I have a God that is big enough for any question that I bring and greater than any doubt that I have.

When feelings fade, so does my faith.

Another sign or symptom is Jesus exists to make me happy.

I follow Jesus for what he can do for me, expecting him to make my life easy and comfortable.

When my life includes struggles or difficulties, I feel let down by God or susceptibility to cultural trends.

I often adopt cultural philosophies or values without asking, does this align with God's word?

Maybe the motivation behind it, I don't want to stand out.

So I let cultural values dictate my choices rather than God's word.

Another symptom is outsource spiritual nourishment.

I rely heavily on spiritual leaders or podcasts, but lack the personal initiative to seek God and understand his word for myself.

So I never get into this on my own, but you know what?

I come on a Sunday, I hear a sermon, or I, you know, I'm gonna podcast, or whoever you're following on social media.

These are the signs of a rocky soil.

What causes them?

Let me just give you a let me give you maybe the top four in our day today.

I think the number one cause of rocky soil is consumer Christianity.

Consumer Christianity reduces faith to a transaction, treating God, church, and the gospel as product designed to meet personal needs rather than a life-transforming relationship with Jesus.

Priorities comfort over commitment, my preferences over God's purposes, myself over surrender.

At its core, consumer Christianity asks, what's in it for me?

What came before consumer Christianity was what we call the prosperity gospel.

It kind of undergirds this.

The prosperity gospel is a false gospel declaring that God's primary purpose is to make you happy and to give you the good life, as defined by health, wealth, and American dream.

It is a formalistic faith.

If I give blank, if I do blank, then God will give me.

I can't tell you how many have bought into a formalistic faith and have walked away because God didn't show up in the way they thought he was supposed to.

And by the way, friends, God's primary purpose in your life is not to make you happy.

It's to make you holy.

If you are holy, you will be happy.

If you are holy, you will be healthy.

If you are holy, you will flourish because everything holy is in alignment with who God is, in alignment with his good character and the way he's designed the universe to function and to work.

And so when we align ourselves and begin to become more like him, we actually are happier people.

But his fundamental goal is not your happiness.

He ain't against it, but he longs for you and I to be holy.

Third, selective obedience.

It's a pick and choose theology.

Obeying God when it aligns with my personal preferences and desires, avoiding difficult teachings that challenges lifestyles or values, God's word as suggestive, not authoritative.

You know, we talk about the great commission.

Jesus gave the great commandment, love God, love one another, the great commission.

The great commission was therefore, you know, go into all the world and make disciples.

You know this?

Some of you are familiar with this.

And he says, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And then he says this next line.

We missed this.

We're like, make disciples, okay, and then this is how you do it: baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This is identification into the family of God.

I'm in.

It's a public identification.

I'm a follower of Jesus, and I want everyone to know it.

When you are baptized into the family of God, often your family who was not Christians in that day would disown you.

And then he says this, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you.

Everything.

You know, we really like Jesus' teachings on love, don't we?

Like, they're awesome.

Like, he's such a good guy.

Love is so good.

Until, until his definition of love conflicts with the way we want to really love.

Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

That sounds fantastic.

Really good.

You know, the golden rule do unto others as they would have you do unto me.

Yeah, that's really good.

Oh, yeah, I love that.

Love your neighbor, don't love that one.

Love your enemy, I mean, don't love that one.

Pray for those who persecute you?

That's dumb.

Right?

Why?

They're persecuting me.

I'm gonna pray against them, not for them.

Right?

Forgive as you've been forgiven?

I don't want to.

Jesus says, He doesn't care.

It's not about whether you want to or not.

Are you forgiven?

Have you been forgiven by Jesus?

And those who recognize that they've been forgiven much, forgive much, Jesus says.

And if you cannot forgive, you do not recognize how much you've been forgiven.

That is the word of Jesus.

And if we struggle to forgive, and I'm preaching to myself because I have an area that I've been struggling with, I keep taking back my forgiveness.

When we struggle to forgive, we actually are struggling with understanding the forgiveness God has given us.

And then finally, inconsistent spiritual practices.

You know, it's amazing the persecuted church, North Korea, areas of the Middle East, Afghanistan, North Africa, Libya, Sudan, they don't, many of them don't have a complete Bible.

And to keep an entire complete Bible is dangerous, and so they have portions of it.

You know, maybe they have the book of Ephesians or a couple chapters of it, or the book of Philippians, or part of the gospel.

And do you know what they do?

They memorize it.

Not a verse, the book.

There's a whole community because they can't gather together publicly and they do it in secret, but they'll pass the different parts of the Bible that they have and Share it and they'll memorize it, and once they got it, they'll pass it to somebody else.

Because if they're ever taken away or in prison, they want to have God's word because it's good feed.

This I I know it's already convicting.

I'm sorry.

I'm just gonna go there.

I I had this thought this morning.

I'm sorry.

All across social media, across Instagram, all I saw was like the, you know, TikTok banned.

You know what I mean?

It's like immediate.

Everybody knows TikTok's banned.

I just had wondered, like, if the Bible app was banned, how long it would take for us to notice?

We have more access, and yet we're more apathetic.

Okay, Ryan, that's enough.

Help me out.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

I'm with you.

I'm with you.

So, how do we cultivate the soil to deepen our roots?

Just want to give you three things.

How do we cultivate the soil?

There's a breaking that needs to happen, friends.

There's a part of this, I get the reason it feels that like, oh, that's convicting.

Because there's the hard part where we're hitting it, and it's just needing to be broken through.

We need to take the time to allow this to sink deeply for his word to penetrate.

Okay, how do we cultivate?

First, embrace an internal perspective.

We live with a temporal perspective.

Life today is all that matters.

An internal perspective says this one, life is hard.

Yes, life is beautiful, life is good, there's wonderful things about life, but life is hard too.

Jesus said, in this life you'll have trouble.

James, he'd say, consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

That word perseverance is the Greek word hypomento, to remain under.

It's like the idea of weightlifting, strength training, remaining under that weight.

It produces perseverance.

Perseverance must finish its work so that you might be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

If we don't embrace that life is hard and that God will take and use what those things that we're walking through to mature us, we will be shallow Christians.

And we're producing it all across America.

Life is hard, but God is good.

A little bit later in James, he would say, Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows.

Every good thing, the sunrise to water, hot water.

I took a hot shower this morning.

It was a cold day, wasn't it?

Praise God for hot water.

And we get a gather publicly, friends.

It's an incredible gift.

And we get a worship together.

John 3.16, I pray, will always move you to tears, whether you're a new believer or you've believed in Jesus for 70 years.

For God so loved you.

It's his disposition that he gave his one and only Son.

That whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Life is hard, but God is good.

And eternity's long.

Eternity's really, really long.

Life's hard, but eternity's long.

In fact, the way the apostle Paul would say it in Corinthians here, he'd say, Therefore we do not lose heart, though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

Why?

For our life and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

So we fix our eyes.

Where are your eyes fixed?

Not on what is seen, not on the temporary, but on what is unseen.

Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

How do you cultivate a soil that deepens your root?

We must embrace an eternal perspective.

Life is hard, God is good, eternity's long, so let's start living like it.

Secondly, get into God's word daily.

Get into God's words daily.

What a gift, friends.

What a gift that we have God's word, that we have access to it.

Psalm 1 talks about the man or woman that's deeply rooted.

Says that he delights in the law day and night.

Romans 12, 2 talks about how do we experience transformation.

It says, do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world.

Don't be molded in or pressed in by culture and the world around us.

Instead, be transformed, metanoia, that's the metamorphosis.

Be transformed.

How?

By the renewing of your mind.

And then notice this.

Then your life will test and approve what God's will is.

His good, pleasing, and perfect will.

When we begin to allow our minds to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, our lives transform.

Our lives are a testimony we experience his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

Would you get into God's word daily?

James Clear in his book Atomic Habits says it this way consistency over intensity.

I think rocky soil or shallow story, shallow soil, our tendency is to go intense.

I'm gonna go.

I remember, what is that even?

I don't even whether we was that, I don't know.

Consistency, consistency, consistency.

That's the reason we're doing 50 days in Genesis, the reason we're doing a little one-minute devo.

Consistency.

Just get into God's word daily.

And then finally, number three.

Make Jesus the Lord of your life.

Jesus said some things, friend.

He said, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.

Then he says, Everything else will be given to you as well.

Seek first.

Today I wake up and you are my first allegiance, my first affection.

You have everything.

Jesus said, if anyone wants to be my disciple, they must deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow me.

And then he goes on.

Whoever wants to save their life will lose it.

But if anyone loses their life for my sake will find it.

It's the upside-down reality of the kingdom of God that in denying ourselves, we actually find our true selves in Christ and we truly begin to live.

Would you make Jesus the Lord of your life?

What does that mean?

Well, that he's not just a life coach, but he's actually king.

Many of us have made the decision, Jesus, you are my savior.

Would you be my rescuer?

And at a point in time, you need to make the decision, Jesus, you are my Lord, be the leader of my life.

And for some today, that is your next step.

Lordship means, Jesus, you have it all.

In the old days, this is what it looked like.

Okay, you guys remember a checks?

You remember checks?

Yeah, you remember you write a check?

Yeah, okay, let me explain this.

Um, a check is a piece of paper where you would write your name on it, you know, and you would um sign it, and then you'd write what it was for.

Like lordship is the blank check of your life and handing it over, going, like, okay, I've signed the check, but I didn't fill in it anything in how much it was, and I'm just gonna hand it over, Jesus.

You get to fill in the check.

Now, today I think what it is is I think it's our phone.

Imagine handing Jesus your phone.

Unlocked.

You get it all.

You have it all.

How you tell me to do relationships is the way I'm gonna do relationships.

How you tell me to do finances is the way I'm gonna do finances.

Uh how you talk about how I'm supposed to interact with my coworkers and friends and family is the way I'm gonna do it.

You are the Lord over my sexuality, you are the Lord over every single area of my life.

You get the first and final say.

So let me ask you.

What areas of your life maybe are you resistant to let Jesus lead?

Jesus doesn't want to fit into your life, friends.

He is your life.

How do we cultivate the soil of our souls?

Embrace an eternal perspective, get into God's word daily, make Jesus the Lord of your life.

It is a decision, and you return to it each day.

Romans 1 says, therefore, in view, or Romans 12, 1 says, therefore, in view of God's mercy, present or offer your body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to the Lord.

This is your spiritual act of worship.

Like it's a daily thing.

Today, God, here's my body, here's my time, here's everything.

I presented to you, and this is my worship.

Friday, January 10th, it's Quitter's Day.

One week prior, Friday, January 3rd, was graduation day for one of our beloved members at Awakening.

Arlette went home to be with the Lord.

I told a bit of Arlette's story last fall.

Teacher for 32 years, taught at my my boys' school, they're junior high.

In uh the end of 2021, the beginning of 2022, she was diagnosed with ALS.

It's a I it's just a horrific disease.

She went from walking and talking to losing certain functions of her legs and then her arms.

By the end, just being able to move her eyes and control the speech with her eyes.

Incredible the technology.

In September, she wrote this on a Facebook post.

I've been asked, how can I have joy and gratitude while living with the death sentence of ALS?

My response is, how can I not have joy and gratitude?

If I didn't, I don't think I could.

Oh gosh, I can't even see I'm crying.

If I didn't, I don't think I could get through the day.

Gratitude is a choice, and I choose to see the blessings that surround me.

One thing I loved about my photography was I slowed down and noticed the details of the world around me.

I encourage you to slow down the trajectory of your life, to see the blessings of your family, the beauty of creation, the blessings of friendship.

No amount of money or promotion or popularity can ever bring you joy.

True joy and contentment is knowing I'm loved by my creator, that he sees the bigger picture of my life, that he knows how my story ends.

I can't stop ALS from taking my physical body, but in the end I still win because of my creator.

And on January 3rd, Arlette heard from her savior, well done, good and faithful servant.

A new body, no more pain, in the presence of her savior forever.

Last time I was with her, a group of us prayed together.

She wrote with her eyes with ALS, it's a hopeless end.

But with Christ, I have an endless friends.

Would you embrace an eternal perspective?

And I think in this moment for many, the call and the invitation is to examine what places in your heart and life Jesus is not Lord.

And not in shame and not in I'm terrible person, just go, this is it, and Jesus, I just bring it to you.

I've been holding this back.

I want to be the leader.

I want to have the say.

In fact, if I'm honest, I just don't trust you.

I'm afraid that you'll mess my life up.

I'm scared.

But I'm right-minded.

Every good and perfect gift comes from you.

Oh, I can trust the God who came for me, who died for me, who gave everything for me.

Who said, I I work all things together for good.

To those who are called according to my purposes.

And as we worship, I want you to take the very physical response of a closed hand like this.

And I want you to visualize the things that you're holding on to, that you're holding back.

And as we worship, would you simply do this?

Would you open your hands?

Would you be willing to go, Jesus?

I give them to you.

I give that relationship to you.

I give that addiction to you.

I give that hurt and pain to you.

I give my future to you.

I give my longings to you.

Would you be the Lord of my life?

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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