Rooted: Session Four: The Qualities of a Good Heart | Pastor Rod

Speaker: Well, thank you again then for being here.

We're honored to do what we do as pastors and we don't take lightly.

But what's happening here, we don't take lightly the fact that you're here

dedicating time and that you are, uh, doing this, besides doing almost anything

else that you might do on a Saturday.

We're enormously thankful for your participation and your attention, and

we think that this is gonna be one of those messages, these sermons, at

least this set of sermons can be some of those messages that really make

an impact on your life, not only this week, but on the weekends to come,

hopefully even when you go back home.

One of the things that I prayed for all of you.

Though differently is that the people that sent you on your way,

the people that allowed you to come, would notice that you are different.

That you are improved and increased in your love for God and your love for them,

and that the way that you care about them would look discernibly different.

And I can assure you that if you were to take these sermons and put

them into work, you would in fact find yourself operating differently.

When we looked at the parable of the soils, we recognize it.

Uh, there's four different kinds of hearts that the word of God lands on.

And these four different kinds of hearts, uh, are, are often hard for

us to discern, at least in the moment.

In session one, we talked about the kind of path heart, the hard soil

that rejects the word outright.

This is the kind of person, uh, who Satan snatches the word from their

heart that never has a chance to even make any changes because the word

is immediately taken in session two.

Uh, pastor PJ preached about the rocky soil in Matthew 13.

He warned us about the deception of the shallow and untested faith that

looks alive at first, but withers under trials and persecutions.

This kind of heart is gonna be the kind of heart that everybody goes through, but

this heart just doesn't have the stamina or the will to survive to keep going.

Um, actually, lemme give you this one here.

The third one that we looked at from Pastor Mark this morning, he

preached about the thorny soil.

And, and Luke, which we're gonna look at again, he warned about the worldly

anxieties, riches, and pleasures that can choke out the life that ha appears.

And instead that we should give our attention and energy to what is most

important, most essential, and give our hearts and, and minds to God so

that we're not tempted to throw off the hope that we have in Christ.

And trust ourselves to the father's faithful care rather than

trying to care for ourselves by building bigger and better barns.

The last oil that we're gonna look at now is the one that of course,

we pray that is true of you.

And in fact, what we're going to look at is the qualities of a good heart.

And of course, these are gonna be the qualities that are gonna make

manifest themselves in your lives.

If in fact, your heart is right with the Lord.

Now it doesn't mean it's gonna be an an incessant.

Pro progression.

We know as Christian men that there are seasons of great growth and

there are seasons of great famine and sometimes it's, it's a bit of a mixture.

However, by and large, much like the stock market, you're gonna see that the

progression is always gonna trend upward.

Your growth in Christ is never static.

It's always a dynamic hard progression toward an increasing godliness.

And this is what we're gonna see in the third soil, rather the fourth soil.

So turn with me back to Luke chapter eight.

We're going to look at Luke's accounts.

In fact, I'm gonna read you Luke's account because I think it's good for

us to hear the whole thing so that we can really feel the full effect

of what Jesus is wanting us to hear.

Luke chapter eight, starting at verse four.

We're gonna pay special attention to the fourth soil, but let's just look at all

of them as we make our way through here.

Luke chapter eight, starting at verse four.

And when a great crowd was gathered and people from town after town

came to him, 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 the thorns.

And the thorns grew up and with it, uh, the thorns grew up rather,

rather with it and choked it.

And some fell into the good soil and grew and yielded a hundred fold.

Luke's accounts the only one that says a hundred fold.

The others will say 30, 60 or 90.

Luke goes right for the jugular and says a hundred fold.

The good soil is extraordinarily productive.

We'll come back to that as he said these things.

He called out, he who has ears to hear, let him hear, which tells

us that even though they heard his voice, not everybody understood it.

Not everybody had the will to listen.

Verse nine.

When the disciples asked him what the parable meant, he said to them, to

you, it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for

others, they are in parables so that he's again, quoting Isaiah chapter six

here, 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 a time of testing they fall away.

And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear.

But as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and

riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.

As for that in the good soil, they are those who hearing the word hold

it fast in an honest and good heart, and they bear fruit with patience.

In this final soil, you find that the difference between the good

soil and the others, that this is the only one that bears fruit.

This soil is receptive.

It receives the seed, it implants the seed, and because the soil has been

prepared, it's able to produce a harvest.

And as Luke says in verse eight, here, it's a hundred fold.

This soil is productive.

The other gospel rider say that every soil, every good soil has

a variable productivity rate.

Some 30, some 60, some 90, as I said, which tells us that all Christians

are fruitful, but to varying degrees.

But at the time of this writing here, something really fruitful

would've been a tenfold crop harvest.

They would've said, that's great.

You get a tenfold return.

You're doing really well.

If you got 30 people would be asking you for tips.

What did you do differently?

What kind of soil did you, a manure, what have you, 60, 90.

This is extraordinary fruitfulness.

And Luke says about Jesus, when you're in Christ, when your heart is right,

there is a fruitfulness that allows you to be extraordinarily fruitful.

It's something that's remarkable, something that humans cannot

produce, you might say.

And so Luke is pointing us to a kind of person whose heart is

receptive, whose heart is allowed.

Uh, actually, I dunno if I say yeah, whose heart is.

His heart is so receptive that it bears great fruit.

Now, I chose Luke of the, of the accounts and here's why.

In Matthew 13, Jesus has described as saying, this is the, the soil that

hears, understands, and bears fruit.

That's helpful.

Uh, and so does Mark.

Mark says much the same thing.

It hears, accepts, and bears fruit, but Luke gives us the

most detail about the good soil.

Luke says it this way, hears, holds fast bears fruit and

does it in a certain manner.

This says, with patience.

And so all three of the accounts are helpful as they are, but we're gonna

look at Luke's in particular because it gives us the most to work with here.

Now remember the thesis that I've been working with this weekend, and

it's that the condition of your heart determines the fruitfulness of your

response, as we said in session one, this really puts a lot of pressure

on you then to ensure that whenever you encounter the word of God, that

you're not just showing up haphazardly.

That you're making certain, that you're bringing to the table the heart that

is prayed up and well prepared to receive the meal, whether it's in the

corporate setting with the church, or whether it's just you and your Bible

and the Lord, whatever situation it is.

The difference between the fruitful Christian is that the, the fruitful

Christian has a heart that's receptive, A heart that's ready, a

heart that is humble before the Lord earnestly desiring to be fruitful.

The Lord honors that this sermon, we're gonna look at the good fruit

and the good fruit has three qualities that can be described this way.

It is tenaciously receptive.

This good heart is not just a heart that passively looks at the word.

The good heart is tenacious in its receptivity.

We'll talk about that in a second.

It is also sincere in the consideration of the text.

A heart that is good and receives the word rightly, doesn't just hear it.

There is an openness to it.

There's a willingness to say, step on my toes, do your worst, Lord, 'cause I do.

I desire it for your sake.

And finally, there is an enduring fruitfulness to the good heart.

The good heart is not content to just show up one weekend or one Bible study.

The good heart says, I will keep going until Jesus takes

my life with my last breath.

I will praise his name.

I'm gonna keep on serving, keep on pursuing no matter what happens.

This is the, this is the, the, the way that the good heart functions.

And I'm gonna get all of this.

We're gonna look at all of this just from verse 15, verse eight's gonna

help frame for us the good, the, the fruitfulness of the good heart.

But verse 15, and Luke chapter eight tells us what this good heart looks like.

Look at this again.

Here I highlighted the, the words that we're gonna look at

as for that in the good soil.

They are those, these are the people who they hear the word,

that's what you're doing right now.

And then their response to it is threefold.

They hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and they bear fruit with patience.

Let's talk about the first one, then.

The first one, I'm gonna add this one to it.

Hearing the word is kind of the context, but I think this is still helpful.

Hearing the word they hold it fast.

This idea here is carried on in scripture to, to talk about a kind of person.

Who, uh, in fact, you're gonna see this word in other places in the Bible.

Uh, the word can mean someone who possesses something.

Uh, if I were to think about this, if M Smith in his heyday, he gets

the, the football from Troy Aikman.

That's right.

Thank you.

Troy.

Aikman hands, m Ms.

Smith a Football m Ms.

Smith doesn't just hold the ball gingerly and tenderly in his hands.

He tucks that thing in there and he runs like a truck through the

defense all the way to the Red zone.

End zone.

The right place.

He runs to the right place and scores a touchdown.

This is not my field of expertise, but I'm trying.

He doesn't just hold the ball.

He, he holds that thing for dear life.

This.

He holds it like his baby.

He's not letting it go.

That's the idea, carried along by someone who holds it fast.

When God gives you his word, he's not expecting you just

to passively receive it.

He's hap he's, he's hoping that you'll hold it.

And why is that important?

Think about the first soil.

The first soil has an attacker on the pril who would love to swoop in

and take that word from you, right outta your right, outta your hands.

But Jesus says here, the good soil, he fights for that word.

He doesn't just hold the word gingerly, he doesn't just make

sure that it lands in his hand.

He treasures it, he values it.

He understands what he has.

In fact, speaking of value, think about the way that the, the, the

different soils express the values.

The first soil does not value the word at all.

Hard heart.

I have no receptivity.

The second soil, remember the second soil is the rocky soil.

The second soil's values comfort over the opposition that the word produces.

I'd rather be comfortable.

I'd rather not have to fight the world.

My boss, my wife, my kids.

I'd rather not fight everyone around me, so I'm going to let the

word go because it costs too much.

I prefer to be comfortable instead of being right with my God.

Think about the thorny soul.

The thorny soul was distracted by other offers, riches,

pleasures, the things of life.

You know, he, he values fine dining and entertainments.

He values the things that the world has to offer.

He likes the nice cars.

He values pleasure over the word.

It is only when you get to the fourth soil that the fourth soil realizes what he has.

He values the word more than he values.

The other things, which will include comfort, often include your

comfort, often include the stuff.

He holds it fast, he receives it, he treasures it, he keeps it.

And that's why I'm gonna put the first point this way.

It's the best thing I could come up with.

I think if you're going to be a good soil, one of the things

that's gonna be true about you is that you treasure the word highly.

Highly.

I, I've been trying to use Facebook marketplace a lot more

these days 'cause I think you can find a lot of good deals there.

Um, and I recognize that I'm always wor fighting against other offers.

And so I'll, you know, make an offer.

Hey, I see you're selling this thing.

Can, would you take this many dollars?

And often you'll get a pushback all to this many.

Can you do that many?

Now some people, I think they're delusional, they don't understand

you're selling a used good and you're selling it on Facebook marketplace.

You can't charge the same price that you're gonna get it for retail.

And they say, one guy said, I know what I have.

I know what it's worth.

I don't think you do.

I don't think you do.

We gotta know what the word is worth.

We gotta understand how valuable the word is.

And I think all of us here would probably have good enough theology to say, man,

the word is, you know, it's like honey, and it's, it's rich and it's valuable.

Uh, and that might be, we would probably say that, but what's true

about us is gonna be revealed by the way that we actually treat it.

One of the things that stood out to me recently is that, uh, the, the

tenaciously receptive heart, remember, uh, the, the word possess is a good word,

but also another word is restrained.

He's not just content to interact with the word, he's gotta put

his hands around it to keep it.

Now we're gonna talk about the implications of this down the line, but

you can already start conjuring up ideas.

If I were to say, Hey, I want you to possess this word.

Uh, if I were to say, possess Luke 15, I think you'd already start thinking,

okay, probably means I'm gonna memorize it, I'm gonna meditate upon it.

I'm gonna make sure that it permeates my life, restrain it.

Put your arms around it so that it's now your verse.

This kind of tenacious receptivity showcases a man who knows that

the word is better than life.

Scripture says about, about the Lord's love.

It's your love that's better than life, but his love is revealed in the

way that his word is given to you.

You, you might know what this is.

Um, actually, lemme skip it here.

You might know what this is.

If you're old enough to have seen this in firsthand, uh, wow.

This is the Gutenberg press.

RR 2D two, R 2D two.

They're really funny though.

The Gutenberg press is, uh, produced in the 14, some things, 1440s, give or take.

That's the thing that changed everything for us.

Now, the reason you have a Bible in your hands today, the reason you

have, uh, the Bible on your, on your iPad or whatever you're looking at,

is because of this thing right here.

Now, this is what allowed us to mass produce with exceeding excellence

in terms of its replication, the Bible in all his pages.

If you have a Gutenberg Bible, those are worth thousands.

Today I have a page of the Gutenberg Bible.

So cool.

So cool.

What a cool get to have.

Uh, but if you have a Gutenberg Bible, it was produced on something

like this, and it's incredible, incredibly rare and valuable.

It still took a long time to build, to, to build a Bible.

Even with something like this.

Before that, before that, Christians had to, had to do what

you and I are doing right now.

They'd had to go to their local church gathering where maybe

they had a book of the Bible.

Maybe they had a whole Bible, but that was a rare breed.

Christians before them.

Think about that.

Then for 14, for for 1500 years, give or take, so 1440.

For 1400 years, Christians had no daily personal access to the

Bible except what they personally possessed in their head and heart.

Isn't that crazy?

Today we're talking about, Hey, read your Bible every day,

you know, study your Bible.

These guys didn't even have the option to do that unless they had time.

Maybe they took away time from their, their farming and they went to the

local synagogue, or they went to the local church gather and say, Hey,

can I read, can I read this scroll?

If they were even literate, which we didn't even talk about,

they, they were even literate.

They couldn't do that.

So Christians for 1400 years did not have what you and I now have.

Fast forward 586 years, you have it everywhere.

It's ubiquitous.

You can, you can close your eyes, throw a dart in any direction, and

you'll probably hit a Bible 'cause you have full access to the Bible.

Unlike Christians for 1400 years, 1500 years, amazing.

And I thought to myself, what would Christians of yesteryear think about

is if I could take a Christian from the year 1200 and fast forward him into

today and say, just take a look around.

Right.

They would see Bibles everywhere and they mu, they would probably assume

you guys must be the most biblically literate people ever to have existed.

And then I'd say, Nope, not true.

But we're working on it though.

We're working on it.

We're really trying.

It's irony.

We have an embarrassment of riches.

Before this, again, people had to copy the Bible by hand,

and books like this were rare.

Only wealthy families could afford to do this because you had to hire somebody.

To copy the Bible by hand, page by page.

And then of course, because they're paying for this, they would be able

to do curly cues and different colors.

They would draw pictures on the pages to help it be a a little more beautiful.

And then they were massive.

If you've ever seen a a, an old Bible, they're huge.

They're the family bible.

Today we have this and we have it in spades.

These guys would look at us and say, you guys have it way

better than we've ever had it.

And I don't say that's your shame at all.

I'm not trying to make you feel bad that you're not reading your

Bible enough to the country.

I want to encourage you to think what an incredible privilege that we have.

The reason that the good heart holds it fast is because he knows what he has.

He knows how valuable it is to have the word of God in his language.

Spoken right to him where he's at, and in our case, to have it between two beautiful

leather covers gilded with gold on the edges with 14 ribbons of all different

sizes and shapes, and just to have this most precious treasure in our hands.

That's just material.

When we start thinking about what it actually is, we now recognize the word of

God is precious because it comes from God and it's to us really quickly then what

treasuring God's word might look like.

First of all, if we're gonna treasure it the way the good heart does, I

think the, the hearing of the word is part of the answer, isn't it?

Uh, remember, the, the, the story begins with the fourth soil hearing.

The word of Gotti holds it fast.

So at bare minimum, there has to be some kind of constant nourishment,

a constant exposure to the word.

And again, before 1440, having that access was weekly.

For most families, they'd go to church, but you now have access to this.

Every day.

In fact, you can drive home and in your hour and a half listen to two sermons

or listen to four or five different books of the Bible read on audiobook.

If you're familiar with Eddie's YouTube channel, you can listen to

dramatized versions of the Bible.

You have access to all sorts of options to taking God's word hearing.

It is essential to treasuring it.

That makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

If you're investing money in the stock market, you're not gonna make a profit.

If you're not putting money into it.

In a similar way, you're not gonna find the value of God's word unless you're

giving it ample time and attention.

I, I, I cited for you here, Deuteronomy 17.

This is the section of scripture where Moses writes a command that

I think might be good for us to do.

In fact, I think Pastor Pja recently mentioned this, Moses

tells the future king of Israel.

I want you to write a copy of God's word for yourself.

So that you may do it all the days of your life.

The king was not permitted to say, Matt, I want you to write my copy for me.

He wanted that God wanted the king himself to write the copy so that

he would have direct access to God's word, and then he was to have it all

his days so that he could abide by it.

All his days, he had to do this because he was responsible for others.

He had a charge to lead the people.

Now, I, I understand brothers, I could say that you guys are all

kings and I I, that that's true.

You're all kings.

I, I get that.

Uh, but you are, you're not kings in the technical sense, but you

are husbands and fathers, your brothers, your sons, your employers.

You have responsibility that God has gifted to you.

He's stewarded you.

You're responsible for grandkids.

Perhaps you have a responsibility then, much like the kings to care for

the people that are entrusted to you.

And one of the ways that you do that is you have an, an ever, ever going spring

that allows you to feed and pour into others your hearing of the word of God.

Your intake of the word of God allows you to be useful to the Lord.

Regular and daily hearing.

At least.

A second thing that we can think of here is retained.

Uh, you notice here, um, in fact, let me, okay.

Recently.

Speaker 2: Oh man.

Speaker: Okay.

Luke 22.

I'm gonna have to summarize this for you, but Luke chapter 22, if you wanna write

Luke 22 · chapter mention

the text down, Luke 22, 31 through 34.

This is just, we're, I think we're gonna get there soon if we're not there already.

We're, uh, the pastors are ahead of you in the daily Bible reading

because of the podcast, but at some point you'll read Luke 22.

Soon.

In Luke 22, Peter says to the Lord, uh, Lord, I, I am, I'm a, I'm gonna

be faithful to you even under death.

I don't care what these other knuckleheads do, I will serve you.

I if they all abandon you, he says, I will remain faithful.

And of course, Jesus sets him straight from this is the, the second or third

time he's done this, he'll say, he says, Peter, actually what's gonna happen

is before the rooster crows, you'll have denied me three separate times.

Now, imagine you're Peter.

In that moment you just said to the Lord, look, if they, if they all deny

you, I will remain faithful Lord.

And then he says, but you're not gonna do that, Peter, before the

rooster crows, you'll deny me.

Okay.

It's gotta be definitive moment in your life, right?

Jesus is looking at you, the Son of God, the Christ is looking at you

saying, you are going to deny me.

I don't know what Peter thought in that moment, but it wasn't just 15 verses

later, he totally forgets this because he falls into exactly the right trap.

He heard the words, but hours later, Peter fulfilled exactly what Jesus said.

He denies him three separate times.

At least two of those times were from the serving girl.

In the courtyard who's saying, alright, I understand your accent.

Aren't you one of those people?

You're a gile?

And Peter's like, no, I, no, no, don't know what you're talking about.

You're outta your mind SISs.

He just starts, he starts calling down curses on himself.

Here's what's fascinating to me because in verse 61, Luke adds a detail

that the other synoptics don't say.

After Peter's third denial, here's what it says.

The Lord turned and looked at Peter, the Lord Jesus turned and looked at Peter.

Okay.

And then Peter remembered the saying of the Lord.

Peter forgot within a span of hours what Jesus said he forgot.

And yet it was one of the most definitive prophecies to be

ever, to ever to be given to him.

Peter, you're gonna deny, deny me three times.

Sure Lord sure he denies it or he forgets it, whatever it says.

Verse 61.

He remembers after Jesus looks at him.

Could you imagine that exchange of, of, of eye contact?

Peter denies him.

I tell you, I do not know the man and just in that moment, Jesus being bound

by these, these thugs with him looks directly at Peter, makes eye contact.

Could you imagine what Peter felt in that moment?

Peter forgot.

And if Peter could forget, surely we can forget, which means then one

of the ways that we show that we value in treasure of the word is

that we have to do whatever we can.

We have to fight to remember this.

We have to fight to hold it fast.

Thirdly.

A regular hearing retained, uh, memorized, um, and reflected upon

meditated the dwelling richly.

Uh, Psalm chapter one, you wanna know who the blessed man is.

Psalm chapter one says, blessed is the man who does not walk in the council of the

wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but

his delights is in the law of the Lord.

I heard you say that.

Good job.

His delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law.

He wants, you know, this meditates day and night, meditates day and night.

That is an ongoing.

Regurgitation and reflection and interaction with the word.

This is the man who is receptive soil.

Whatever your interaction with the word is today, I'm confident you

would say there's room for more.

There's room for better.

I can get more contact with it.

And the scripture's.

The only thing where I could say more is better.

Some things more is not better.

Some fasting, as I heard this afternoon, is good.

Five days of fasting is good, maybe as much as 40 days, but a

hundred days of fasting is not good.

It.

You start fasting for the rest of your life, it's not gonna go well with you.

Some fasting is good.

More fasting is not better, but that's not true.

When it comes to the word of God.

Some reading is good, some meditating is good, some memorizing is good.

More reading is better.

More meditating is better.

More memorization is better.

The more you can get it into your heart and mind.

When your delight is in the law of God, no one's gonna stop

you from spending time with it.

In fact, I think a lot of this reminds me a lot like of a Rangers fan.

Anyone have any Rangers, fans in their lives?

I don't wanna point anybody out, uh, but let me tell you what they're like.

What, let tell you what it's like to live with or around,

or to work for a Rangers fan.

Not that I'm thinking of anybody in particular.

Speaker 2: No, gg?

Yeah, no.

Speaker: If you go to this, you know, this generic Ranger fan, the avatar of

a Ranger fan, you go to their office.

You'll see ranger's, idolatry all over the walls, shrines, literal

shrines on the wall that celebrate their glory and their grandeur.

See hats with their, their logo on it.

And, uh, you know, you, you, you talk about anything related to

the team, they could just spout everything about them, their history

and the stats and the prospects.

And here's 14 things they could do to improve their season.

Here's all these guys here that were looking at.

I, you just, you cut them and they could talk about them.

That's what love does.

Someone who delights in something, like that's what happens.

You naturally remember things because you care about that.

You value that.

And I'm not knocking that at all.

I'm just saying it's very similar.

That's, that's, that's how it works.

You say, I can't remember.

I'm too old for that.

I, I, when I was younger, I could remember everything.

It was like a lockbox in there.

But now that I'm older, it's so much harder to memorize.

No, it's not.

It really isn't.

You just need to delight in the law of God.

This heart will memorize because it's what I love.

I I love this.

I love I'm sure you love your wife.

Sure you love your kids.

No one has to remind you what your kids' names are normally, right?

Normally, you love them, you care about them.

No one has to remind you what your wife's name is.

You love her.

You care about her.

You probably remember your anniversary by this one because you love her.

Loving the word of God will help you meditate on it and think about it

to let it dwell within your richly.

Colossians three 16 says.

Okay, back to our text.

Treasure it highly.

So hearing the word, this is the context.

This is the good heart.

They hold it fast, they possess it, they restrain it, and then they

hold it fast in a certain manner.

It is with an honest and good heart.

What's fascinating about these, uh, these, those two words, honest and good, is that

they kind of say the same thing there.

There's two Greek words and underline 'em.

They're different words, but both of those words, they're primary lexical form.

Speaks to the same word.

Good.

So you could say the, the, the, the good heart holds it

fast and a good and good heart.

But of course, that's not gonna be as helpful.

So here's a way to think about it.

I'm gonna submit this to you.

The first word that, that they, that Luke uses is the word Carlos.

And I'm gonna say to you, this probably speaks to the honesty

or the sincerity, the genuine.

Of the, uh, the receptive heart.

It is sincere, genuine.

It is fitting.

It functions the way it's supposed to.

This is the way your relationship with God is intended to work.

The honest heart then is the one that's honest with God about oneself.

I don't put on airs with God.

Remember when Nathaniel comes up to the Lord Jesus, they introduced

Nathaniel to him and he says, here's a man in whom there is no guile.

He's commending him because he's not a phony.

He's not a fake.

What you see is what you get.

This kind of person is authentic toward God.

He's got an honest heart toward the Lord.

He doesn't try to pretend he's something he's not.

He's open about where he falls short.

He's also open about the fact that God has made him an object of his grace.

He's grown and he praises God for that.

His humility does not negate.

His honesty.

In fact, it works in it like a, like a rich soil that flourishes the fruit.

He's humble, his heart is humble and rightly ordered toward God.

The second word is a different word.

It's agathas.

This is also a word that means, again, good primary lexical form.

Good.

This is the heart that is rightly oriented toward others.

Um, this is someone who's morally good, who expresses a great love for people.

Now, if, if my understanding of this text is right, what we're seeing is

a microcosm of the great commandment.

Track with me, honest toward God, honest and good, good toward others.

What is the great commandment?

You are to love the Lord your God with your heart, soul minus strength, all

your heart, soul minus strength, and you're to love your neighbor as yourself.

The good heart has, has really adopted a, a life of love

for God and love for people,

but more specifically about the way he interacts with the word he.

Point number two, receives the word sincerely.

The good heart, the good soil receives the word in a sincere way.

He receives it with a sense of saying, I, I long to do something with this.

All of God's word is not meant to educate you.

It's meant to activate you.

The God.

The the Word of God is not meant just to inform you.

It's meant to transform you.

The word of God is not meant to simply give you more knowledge.

But to give you more application, every time you encounter the word of God,

there's an opportunity for you to say, okay, what do I need to do with this?

How do I respond to this?

That God doesn't want you to be like a car collector who simply collects a lot of

knowledge and then parks it in the garage.

He doesn't want you to be a Christian Jay Leno.

He'd much rather you be the kind of person who takes the car and

drives it, puts it to use, makes the car what it's meant to do, makes

the car do what it's meant to do.

These next two points really focus on that.

The reception of the word shows that it's a sincerity.

It's intended to make us responsive to God, make us responsive to

others, and this is a critical ingredient to the good soil.

The good soil does something with the word always well, the second point

will make, or the third point rather, will make a, a, a better case for that.

But let me point you to one guy in the Bible who I think does a really

good job of illustrating this.

His name is King Josiah.

King.

Josiah is the 17th.

I think he's a 16th king of Judah, um, over the southern kingdom.

Josiah is one of the highlights.

He's one of the good kings.

What happens in his affairs, his, his father gets assassinated.

And so King Josiah is installed at the tender age of eight years old,

which is terrifying for a nation.

You got this 8-year-old king, and yet God uses 8-year-old young

man to transform the nation.

He ruled for 55 years.

Um, actually he ruled for.

Uh, yeah.

No, I think that's right.

Yeah.

Yes.

Eight.

He ruled a long time.

He ruled a long time.

I had in my notes here, I didn't.

His grandfather Manasseh ruled for 55 years.

That's why I have in my notes here.

He ruled a long time.

Uh, king Josiah though, was a blessing to the nation because he

was responsive to the word of God.

Here's what happened.

Imagine this one of your chief officials finds the Bible hidden in the temple.

And the reason why is because King Josiah initiated a temple renovation.

He was trying to fix what had been fallen and disrepute.

And so he finds the Bible and they say, king Josiah, we found

a copy of the book of the law.

Now imagine that the, the nation of Judah loses the Bible and then they find it

probably covered in dust in the temple.

They bring it to King Josiah, and King Josiah responds to

God by ripping his clothes.

He responds to this.

Now he's probably a little older by this point.

He responds positively though this young man understood that the word

of God was so valuable and that it was so binding on them that when he

was responsive to it, when he saw it, he recognized, we have done poorly.

We have not honored God.

King.

Josiah tore his clothes.

And then later on God's gonna say, I will respond to you, king Josiah,

because your heart was penitent.

I have heard you.

You responded the right way to my word.

So often it is not true that we respond with sincerity, and this

is why I'm so concerned about our sessions, uh, having the right heart.

Uh, our job is to be much like King Josiah to say, okay, I want

to respond the way that I should.

Let me identify four things about the posture that Josiah had.

The text will be underneath here.

First of all, king Josiah responds with humility.

If you and I are gonna respond the right way to God's word,

there has to be humility.

Pride will kill your relationship with God and others.

If you think you are better than the word.

If you feel like, I already know this, I already do this.

Oh, this guy, this doesn't apply to me.

I'm so much further along than this.

This is gonna be one of the most poisonous thoughts you can

allow into your head and heart.

Josiah doesn't say I, I don't need this.

I don't need the word of God.

His dad and a lot of his lineage were men who did not honor the Lord.

It would make perfect sense if Josiah said, I, I got that.

I don't, I don't need the word of God.

We've been doing fine without it.

We'll do fine in the future.

King Josiah responds with humility, rips his clothes and

says, oh no, we are in trouble.

He took God seriously.

He humbled himself before God.

This is the kind of person whose heart is deeply sensitive, highly

responsive to the word of God.

Now, keep in mind here, this is not because the sermons are amazing.

We'd like to have amazing sermons.

We work really hard for you to do that, but even as I was

sharing in the our small group.

It's rare that you hear anything like brand new and just remarkably insightful.

It's like, wow, I never thought of that before.

Sometimes that happens and I praise God for those.

But a lot of times you're gonna hear things that you

already heard that I knew that.

Okay, cool.

This heart is easily edified.

This heart is malleable to the word of God, not because the orator is so skilled,

and he weaves words together beautifully, and he moves me with powerful emotions.

No, it's the word of God that he relies on.

He's so in tune with God's word, that whatever the preacher says,

I'm gonna say, man, I want that.

I need that.

Teach me, Lord.

If God can teach people through a donkey, he can use your

pastors humble responsiveness.

Second, Josiah showed dependency.

Josiah recognized that he could not handle the word alone.

So he sends for the, the prophet, he calls for the local, local prophet

who's actually a prophet test.

He calls Holda and God and ask God, what do you want us to do with this?

Hold responds with this long prophecy about how God's gonna

respond, but he understands.

He's dependent.

He needs God to speak to him even after receiving the word of God.

He needs God to show him.

What do I do with this?

How do I respond to this?

Do you ask God?

When you receive a sermon, when you open your book, God, help me to see this.

Help me to understand what to do with this.

That's what Josiah does.

Third, Josiah responds with gravity.

He trembles out the word.

He doesn't respond just with a, a, a recognition that I'm low.

God is high.

He doesn't just respond with the dependency.

I need help.

He responds with gravity.

The word is heavy and weighty.

And so he says, I understand that.

My job is to know that what God says is true.

I take it seriously and so help me.

I'm gonna respond the way that I should.

So help me, God.

I'm gonna do with the word what I should.

In fact, this is what God says is pleasing to him.

Listen to what God says through the lips of Isaiah, but this

is the one to whom I will look.

You want God's attention.

Here's what he looks for.

He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

Do you tremble at the word of God?

Do you feel a holy reverence for what God says to you in his word?

If so, this is the person that God looks to, that humble hearted, receptive

servant is the person that God says.

That's the guy I'm gonna look at.

When God's looking for a tool to use in his tool chest, he's not gonna go for the

greasy one that's dull and looking rusty.

He's gonna go for the one that is strong, ready to be useful, humble contract,

trembling at his word, the tool that's not gonna fight him when he uses it.

He's looking for the tool that says, I'm available, Lord.

Use me as you please.

If you want me to clean the toilets in the church, so be it.

You want me to serve my family and sacrifice my time for

the good of others, so be it.

You want me to do some lowly job and set up or tear down, so be it.

You want me to be second fiddle to someone else?

So be it.

Whatever you want.

Lord, your word is the, your word is bond.

Whatever you say.

Ghost gravity.

If God wants you to do it, you say, he says jump.

You say how high gravity Josiah responds with.

Attentiveness.

He responds to the word of God.

Lastly,

Josiah responds with hopefulness.

In fact, God responds to Josiah because of these three things.

God gives Josiah a positive word.

He says, Josiah, things are going to turn bad before they get any better.

But I'm gonna spare you from this because of the way you responded.

God gave hope and grace to decide because of how he responded to his word.

Brothers, this is where it's at for us.

We're gonna treasure God's word highly and respond to it with sincerity.

This is what we can expect.

God will show us favor and grace.

Things might be falling around, uh, falling apart around us, but

we can trust that God will care for us through these things.

Remember, this is the one that God looks to humble contract trembles at my word.

This is the receptive heart.

Okay, finally, we hear the word.

We hold it fast, we possess it, we, we restrict it into us.

We hold it the best we can.

We do it with a certain attitude, an honest and good heart.

And now finally, this is probably the hardest part, and

this is what distinguishes the good soil from all the others.

Bears fruit with patience.

This is the person who doesn't only just do it, but he stays at it, he responds to

it and he stays at it day in and day out.

Brother, this is the hardest part.

And I wish I could, I soften the blow for you, but the truth of the

matter is that there's going to be 1,000,001 things that make your walk

impossible from a human perspective.

You'll have.

What we didn't talk about with all the trials is that it's

not that the trials happen.

We all expect that everyone's gonna go through trials and uh, I love

the way that Pastor Peach said it.

It's not whether you suffer, but whether or not you.

I, I should remember what you said as I quote you.

Just delete that from the thing, please.

He said it really good.

Trust me, what he said was so good.

What's most challenging about this is that the, the trials are tailored

to you because God's not foolish.

He's not just generally sending you through difficulty.

They're tailored to you and to your weaknesses and to

your specific picadillos.

Your sinful tendencies, your I, your, your, your subtle idolatries.

God, God doesn't send trials on accident.

They're purposeful events that are meant to.

Shape you, mold you do, you know, you guys sing that old worship song, refiners Fire.

My heart's.

One desire is to be holy.

Don't sing that song.

That's a refiners fi burn me Lord.

Burn off all the sins You really want that.

It's like the other song that we sing.

Um, if, if All of You means Less of Me, take everything.

If more of you means less of me, take everything I tremble

at that song because I mean it.

But I'm also trembling 'cause I know what that I'm inviting the Lord

to change everything in my life.

And again, your trials are tailored.

They're not accidents.

God knows where you struggle.

God knows where you sin.

And so when he sends you through them.

This is where you're gonna feel the pain of this.

I have to bear fruit with patients.

I'm gonna go through this really dark season of cancer.

I'm gonna go through this dark season of unemployment.

I'm gonna go through this dark season of loneliness.

No one calls me back anymore.

My grandkids don't wanna talk to me.

I'm gonna go through this really dark season where my wife and I

are struggling to the nth degree.

I'm gonna go through this really hard season where it feels like

the shadow of death encompasses me.

Your trials are tailor made, and God knows that because they're meant to grow you,

and therefore, this is the hardest part.

This is why this distinguishes this heart from every other heart.

It's soft, it's subtle, it's receptive, but the barest fruit with patience, that

means, here's what that means practically.

You go through difficult seasons and you're still fruitful.

You're still bearing fruit even in the dark of night.

You can bear fruit in dry seasons.

You can be more godly when everything else around you is falling down.

That's the uniqueness of this fruit.

And as I said, humanly impossible.

Humanly impossible, but by the spirit unlocks the door to everything.

The spirit's work in your life makes all of these things make sense.

He binds 'em all together.

The fort soil doesn't just employ the word.

When there's good times, when it's fair weather, uh, fort soil

employs the word consistently.

Fort soil is.

Much like what Psalm chapter one says, I, I only quoted to you verses one and

two, but Psalm one verse three says about that same blessed man who meditates

day and night, he is like a tree that is planted by what Streams of water.

Streams of water.

A tree planted by a stream now has a source of life outside of the rain

that's, that tree has access to.

Living water that will supply that tree with life no matter what the season is,

no matter how dry he has planted like a tree by streams of water that yields its

fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither, and all that he does, he prospers.

This is the tree that always produces fruit regardless of

what's happening outside of it.

This is the tree that's planted by God.

This is the tree that is the receptive heart.

He responds to the word of God.

He's humbled before the word of God.

He produces fruit all year long.

That is the heart.

That God uses in the Christian life, which is why it makes sense now that

he's so extraordinarily productive.

How can he produce 30, 60, 90, a hundred fold fruit?

Because he's producing fruit all seasons.

He's not just waiting for the harvest.

The fruitful Christian is fruitful.

Winter, summer, spring, fall.

He's always fruitful, which is why he's 30, 60, 90 fold.

Now, I should qualify before you get too far ahead here.

This is.

It doesn't mean that you're gonna be equally fruitful every season.

It's just that every season you're making progress.

Your relationship with God is deepening your love for the Lord

and your love for others increases.

This is the whole idea,

enduring fruitfulness hard necessary.

This is the person that God calls us to be.

One of the challenges then is that.

You might find yourself saying, but I'm so often dry, I'm feeling I'm struggling.

Uh, one of my favorite authors and one of my favorite books is called Spiritual

Disciplines for the Christian Life.

Don Whitney says that one of the things that we do as Christians is that we

place ourselves in the path of grace.

We put ourselves in the place where God's grace is expected,

which is, is almost child's play.

I'm, I don't, I'm gonna insult you, but that means then I want

to constantly be in my word.

Now, in fact, I was reading part of a, is it Mueller's?

Uh, uh, Hudson, uh, Mueller.

It's Mueller Mueller's biography.

George Mueller orphanages Great man of faith.

One of the things he said is, I, I found the secret to, to Christian growth.

He said, for years, I pray for a good hour before I would read my Bible, and I

tried to get my heart in the right place.

He says, then I learned that it was actually the reverse that made sense.

I had to read my Bible meditatively.

And then find myself naturally moving into prayer and finding

my heart happy in Christ.

And that's what allowed me to make progress.

When I got the order wrong, I found that I was famished.

He says instead, I needed to feed my soul in order to feed my prayers.

It was him saying, I'm gonna put myself in the path of God's grace.

You need to feast on these things that God gives you.

We could talk about habits and, and, and whether you should, you know,

add these things to your schedule.

I, I mean, I read something recently.

And it stood out.

'cause I thought, that's brilliant.

I've been thinking that my whole life.

I never put it this way.

Here's what the author said.

See if it, see how it lands on you.

He says, behavior modification is dangerously necessary.

Behavior modification is dangerously necessary.

Everyone, if, if you know what behavior modification is, you've

been around the church a little bit.

You understand behavior modification is kind of a negative term.

Um, it's used often to say, well, we don't want to just, uh, behavior modification.

Our kids, we don't want them just to do the right thing.

Now that's true as far as it goes, but we do want them to do the

right thing for the right reasons.

So we train behavior, we teach them the same thing is true for us.

We need to put ourselves in the path of God, grace and

do it for the right reasons.

That's the big Mo.

That's the biggest difference.

If I follow the Lord, if I'm doing it just because I wanna look good

in front of you guys and say, oh look, I just quoted that scripture.

Did you notice that I was so good at that?

If I'm doing it though, for the glory of God.

If I'm doing it because I love you and I love the Lord, and

that's every, that's different.

Now, my habit takes on a whole new realm of importance.

When I memorize my Bible, I'm doing it not just as a begrudging discipline, but

as a way to show my love for the Lord.

But make no mistake, it was behavior modification.

I had to practice that.

Reading my Bible every day has become one of those things I

don't even have to think about.

I just do it.

I love that it's not an automatic, I still pray.

I still interact with it, but it's such a, I don't struggle with it anymore.

It's not a struggle.

I just do it.

Not boasting.

That's what God does.

I go in the path of God's grace.

I feast 'cause I'm hungry, I eat it and the Lord uses those things.

One of the things that Pipe Piper said, and I can't find the precise

quote, but it's exactly the, what I'm gonna show you is him.

Don't look it up on the internet 'cause you can't find it.

I looked several different times for this very thing, but here's

what he said, and it fits.

If you know Piper, it's gonna be like, oh yeah, he sounds something

he would say, here's what he said.

My growth in Christ is frustratingly slow.

He was reflecting on his 70th year, whatever it was, when he, when

he was doing the podcast and, and he said, well, what's one of the

things that stands out to you, John, after all these years of ministry?

And he says, my sanctification so slow.

I've made so little progress compared to what I thought I was gonna be able to do.

I have not gone as far as I wanted to go.

I have not made as much spiritual gains as I wanted to make.

And I thought that's yes, same.

Same bro.

John, Dr.

Piper, same thing.

I want, I want to encourage you with that and suggest to you that's

probably gonna be the same for you, but I, I'm okay with this.

I'd rather you be ambitious enough to say, I'm gonna fight for everything I got and

I, I'm not gonna be satisfied with the holiness that I've acquired to this point.

Your heart has to be.

Constantly vigilantly guarded so that it constantly makes

progress in your sanctification.

It's not gonna be accidental.

You shift into neutral, you're not making progress.

Sure, but you're actually regressing because the Christian

life is driving uphill.

It's the, it's the whole of your C, it's always gonna be driving uphill.

Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's excruciating.

But you always gotta keep your gas, your foot on the gas making progress,

which requires you to guard your heart.

Guarding your heart then means that you're trying to cultivate

the right kind of heart.

A heart that treasures the word highly.

He holds faster.

The word, he receives it sincerely.

He receives it with an honest and good heart.

It's a heart that's true before God, before others.

He's trying to grow in this.

He's letting the word of God do it's work in his life.

And thirdly, he puts the word to work consistently.

He's not a fair weather Christian.

He's all day, every day at the same thing.

Days that he wants to do it.

He does it days that he doesn't wanna do it, he does it.

He's as faithful as the rising sun.

This is.

The tender, receptive, responsive, and consequently, the fruitful

heart fruit takes time.

A good heart then is distinguished by tenacious receptivity.

It's by sincere consideration and enduring faithfulness.

Well, remember we started this whole thing with saying that the thesis

of this weekend is that it is the receptivity of the heart or the

condition of the heart that determines the receptivity of your response.

I said that wrong, didn't I?

It is the condition of your heart that determines the

fruitfulness of your response.

Your heart matters more than you might realize, and what I wanted

to do this weekend is put it on your radar as one of the things

that you're constantly working on.

Going through the motions is important, but going through the motions with

the right heart is more important when you show up to church tomorrow.

I hope you've taken time to pray with your family and as to prepare your own

heart, even maybe to read the Bible ahead of time and say, Lord, help

me make this count that you're never engaging with the word in a passe.

Kind of way, but you're always working at it.

Yeah, man, this is hard.

This is hard work.

Hard work is hard work, but this is the whole thing.

This is the whole enchilada.

This is what matters.

This is what God's gonna commend you for.

It's your heart.

Remember we started this whole thing with one Corinthians 13.

There's a kind of person, I don't know if actually I quoted

you now I think about it.

I missed it.

One Corinthians 13, Paul says, there's the kind of person.

Who can give and serve to the furthest degree.

He says it this way, he says, uh, if I give up my body to be burned, I

sacrifice my life for you, but I have not.

Love is worthless.

It's the most expensive gift you could give anybody, but it can

be spiritually profitless if it's not done with the right heart.

That's what this is all about.

Helping you to serve with the right heart, helping you to love your family

with the right heart, helping you to open your Bible with the right heart,

helping you to engage in church life with the right heart, even helping

you to go through small groups for this next hour with the right heart.

Brothers, we're so grateful to spend time with you and I hope this was

helpful, but we want you, and we've been praying for you to have the right

heart to continue to make progress in these things, and we are trusting

that this is exactly the kind of thing that God does over retreats like this.

Only a day.

We've only been here 24 hours.

Little over that now.

But we're trusting that God will use these things to bless you and benefit you.

And hopefully when you go home this afternoon, this evening, um, you begin

to take a lot more notice about how you love people with the right heart.

Let's pray.

We'll make you to your groups.

God thank you for this weekend and helping us to go through four different sessions

and to listen to the best of our ability.

We now pray, Lord, as we enter into the small group time, that we would do so

with awareness of what we're doing, that it would matter that we would not take it

lightly, but that we would give our best.

Help us to read the text and to think about them and to

respond to them accordingly.

Let us honor and serve you with how we love, with how we love one another,

but also how we engage with this.

It's easy for us, Lord, to give pat answers and to be superficial.

Um, and sometimes that's, that's, it's helpful just to get into the

conversation, but let us not stay there.

Help us to be discontent with just scratching the surface.

Let us dive deep.

Let us be real.

Let us be honest.

Let us make some Godly resolutions as we leave this place, Lord,

that you might be glorified.

That our families and our churches might be blessed.

The people who know us might be blessed because of our lives.

We entrust this to you in Jesus name.

Amen.