Rooted: Session Three: Divided We Fall | Pastor Marc

Speaker: We may be seated.

It is good to be with you here at Men's Retreat.

We've already had a great time.

I know I have.

Uh, it is good that you are here and it's good that we come

together this morning to open God's word yet again at Men's Retreat.

What a good thing that is.

I think most of you know who I am, but just in case you don't know who I am, my

name is Pastor Mark and among a handful of other things at Compass Bible Church.

I oversee our kids' ministry and what a joy that is to do.

We've had a busy season here at Compass.

Uh, it's been a, it's been a busy few weeks.

Easter was a great success and there's been a number of things

we've been doing around that.

Um, it's been a busy season.

It's been a great season.

Eddie, there's the wifi password for you.

Um.

The, uh, it's been a good season, but I want to thank you for being

here at the other side of a busy season at Compass Bible Church.

'cause it could have been tempting for you to say, I need a break.

I need a week off.

But you made a good choice by being here this weekend to hear God's

word, to enjoy the fellowship and the accountability of brothers in Christ.

And I trust that God will bless you because of it.

Speaking of Easter, my family had a, uh, a pretty funny story come out of it.

Uh, I have four kids.

Four kids.

The oldest is six.

And so as you can imagine, they thoroughly enjoyed extravaganza

on Saturday before Easter.

Uh, one of the things you may remember if you were there is we had face painting.

Did you guys get face paint?

Anybody here got face?

No.

None of you guys took up on the face painting?

Well, my kids very much took up all the opportunities they

could to do face painting.

And Shirley, who is my youngest daughter, is two years old and she got bunny ears.

On her forehead.

She was very proud of those bunny ears.

She was very excited about those bunny ears.

She is, uh, she's also the grubbies of our kids by a, a margin.

All our kids need baths, but she makes bath time every night a necessity.

So, Saturday night, you know, for other reasons, those ears come off as, as all

the goo from the day also comes off.

Well, a couple days later, a couple days later.

Her, she is running around our house playing, uh, imagining

things as a 2-year-old does.

She's hopping and she's singing little bunny fufu.

I don't understand that song.

I don't understand how she learns it.

What is it about little bunny fufu and bopping people on the head?

She's jumping around our house singing that song until she jumps in front of

the full length mirror that's in our room and she stops mid, mid sentence.

And she goes, where are my ears?

She had been going around for two days thinking that she had ears on

her face that she did not have, right?

She was imagining all these little games and things in her head.

I'm certain for the full two days, thinking that she was a bunny.

She didn't have that.

It wasn't until she looked in the mirror that she recognized that she was

missing something she thought she had.

In a similar way, our Christian life.

Can be the same.

We can think that we have character qualities.

We can think that we have resistance to sin.

We can think that we have the attributes of a Christian that we ought to

have, but not until God holds up the spiritual mirror, do we realize

actually I don't have those things.

Those things are missing.

Those things are weak.

Those things are fading in my life.

And the parable of the sowers is a great opportunity for you to see

into the spiritual mirror and to assess whether or not you have the

character qualities, the fruit of the spirit, the things that God provides.

And so it's a good thing for us to do that.

Even this morning, uh, pastor Rod did Mark, pastor PJ did, uh, Matthew.

So we're gonna do Luke this morning.

So will you turn with me to Luke chapter eight and we're gonna briefly look.

At the parable of the of the sower in Luke chapter eight.

I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but we're gonna be focusing on the

thorns, and Jesus says in verse seven, and some fell among the thorns.

So some of the seeds fell among the thorns and the thorns grew up with it.

Grew up with the seed, and choked it.

Choked it.

Well, Jesus interprets this as he does with the other seeds.

In verse 14, so just a little bit down.

He says this in verse 14, and as for what fell among the

thorns, they are those who hear.

We've already talked about that, right?

But those who hear in fact may be people that are in our church, right?

They may be people who come to church regularly.

They hear the truth of who God is.

Maybe they're even in a community group, but as they go on their

way, they are choked down.

By the cares and the riches and the pleasures of life, and

their fruit does not mature.

We need to make sure that we are looking in the spiritual mirror to make sure that

we do not have thorns that are encroaching on our life, on our spiritual life.

We need to make sure that that is indeed not true of our own lives.

I'm gonna turn us to a place where Jesus gives an example of

somebody through another parable.

Of a life that is indeed choked out by thorns.

So will you turn with me to Luke chapter 12?

Luke 12 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 12.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

We're gonna begin looking in verse 13, but we'll really settle in.

Verse 16.

Read with me starting in verse 13.

Someone said in the crowd to him.

So there's a crowd that Jesus is teaching and they say to Jesus, they say, teacher.

Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

But Jesus says to him, he says to him, man, who made me an judge or arbiter over

you, ironically, he is indeed the judge.

An arbiter over all, all people, all situations.

But he's responding to this man who misunderstands what Jesus is doing right.

And then he continues and he turns to them to the crowd.

And he uses this as an opportunity to begin to teach them.

And he says to the crowd, he says to them, take care and be on

guard against all covetousness.

For one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.

And then here's where we'll kind of settle in.

Now that we have what came before and he told them a parable saying.

The land of a rich man produced plentifully.

And he thought to himself, notice, he thought to himself, what shall I do

for, I have nowhere to store my crops?

And he said, I will do this.

I will tear down my barns and build larger ones.

And there I will store all my grain and my goods.

And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years.

Relax, eat, drink, be merry.

But God said to him full this night, your soul is required of you and the things

that you have prepared, who will they be?

So is the one who lays up his treasure for himself and is not rich towards God.

Being dominated by worldliness destroys our effectiveness for God's kingdom.

And Christian men need to have their, make sure their effectiveness

is not dampened by the anxieties and the promises of this world.

This farmer, I call him, the foolish farmer, thinks that he has control.

He thinks that through his wealth, through the abundance of his possessions, he is

able to definitively say to his soul.

That he need, not worry, he need not be concerned, he need not have anxiety, but

he misunderstands what he ought to do.

He thinks he needs to control those things, but instead he

is condemned for those things.

He is judged for pursuing that.

And that leads us to our first point for this morning, and that is recognize

that you do not control your life.

Recognize that you do not control your life.

The rich farmer thought he had control.

He thought he had control, and he acted on that control that he thought

he had, and it ended in disaster.

We need to heed that warning and avoid the fate of the foolish farmer.

I think if I asked you on a multiple choice test, you would confidently put

down that God is perfectly sovereign.

You would be willing to say if you were writing a paper that God is.

A hundred percent in control, but we quietly live our lives in

such a way that reflects, that's often not what we actually think.

We may be able to answer that question accurately, but the way

that we live our lives reflects that.

We actually think that we have some control.

We actually think, oh, well, again, maybe not actively, but deep down in

our heart we think, oh, actually I am in control of this thing, and if

I just do this or I just do that, or I say this, then I will demonstrate.

That I have control and I will be able to solve my problems.

Yes, indeed.

God has given you some control over things.

You can manage your investments, you can care for your home.

You can raise your kids, but all of those things are derived and it is ultimately

God who controls those things, right?

It is God who controls those things and has even given you the abilities

and the functions that your soul and your body have to be able to carry

out that, so we can't conflate.

The control that God has given us in a sense with the absolute perfect control

that God does indeed have for us.

You cannot keep the stock markets from crashing.

There's nothing you can do to to stop that.

You cannot actually permanently in some sort of absolute way,

keep your house from burning down.

You cannot make your kids who you've poured your life

into love you no matter what.

There are things in life that you do not control, and this foolish farmer

realized he has attained it all.

I don't think anyone in this room has the wealth and the prosperity and

the possessions to be able to say, with this absolute sense that the

farmer says that, oh, now it's time.

Now it's time that I can relax.

Now it's time that I can eat and drink and be entertained.

We don't have that.

But even this farmer who does have that, demonstrates that he has no control.

And if we pursue a life where we're after the things that the farmer has,

and that's what we think is gonna solve our problems, we're gonna face

the same judgment as the farmer.

So we must watch this carefully.

Perhaps.

Perhaps you don't have a home yet and you are wanting a home.

You think to yourself, man, I will finally feel at peace if I have that house.

Man, it'll be so good to be able to raise my family in a home.

My wife will be happy.

She's gonna love the new kitchen that we're gonna put in there.

If I have that home, then everything is gonna be all right.

There's nothing wrong with a home.

Don't hear me Saying that A home is inherently sinful.

However, if we are building up metaphorical barns in our savings

account because we are pursuing that home that we think is gonna make us happy.

Then perhaps the thorns of the cares of this life are creeping up around us.

Perhaps you have kids that are in high school, or maybe they're already in

college, and you and your wife agree that college education is really important.

It's what's gonna set them up for their life.

They'll be able to make the money they need, they'll be able

to take care of themselves if they get that college education.

So I'm gonna do everything I can to do that for them.

But if.

The need for that means that you work extreme hours and maybe

you're even away from the kids that you seek to care for and raise.

And when you are home, you're too tired and exhausted to be around them.

Maybe you are being choked out by the thorns of this life.

Maybe you're nearing retirement or maybe you're already in retirement

and, and you look at your portfolio.

And you recognize the years of toil and work and stress that allows you

to have that retirement account.

And then Trump goes to war with Iran, right?

And the straight of war moves is open one minute and close the next minute.

You need a retirement.

There's nothing wrong with a retirement.

You in fact need that.

But if your life is consumed, especially during things like the last handful of

weeks, with constantly opening up your phone with your Fidelity account and

refreshing it to see the money come in and go out, and you're consumed with

that and it causes you to be unable to do the other things in your life,

perhaps you are entangled by thorns that are growing into your life.

For men, anxiety is often, not always, but often associated and connected to the

control that we think we need to have.

How do we control our lives?

Well, in most cases, the way we control our lives is through the wealth,

through the finances that we have.

We are either worried about the money that's coming in and out of the account.

Or we're worried about how we're gonna use that money to be able

to solve the problems that we see.

What we learn from the rich, foolish farmer is that indeed, that that

provides us no security whatsoever.

And this is why Jesus connects the two, right?

Even in the parable, the so sower, it's it's riches and

pleasures and cares of this world.

They are ingrained and connected to each other, and certainly there's other

places that anxiety can flow from, like we've been learning on Sunday

mornings and can come from suffering.

But I wanna focus in on this particular aspect because it is

so prevalent to all of our lives.

Well, maybe you're saying, you know, actually, I don't care about having

the house and the high powered job.

In fact, I want to have a simple life.

I just want a place in the countryside to raise my kids to take care of my wife.

Away from the stress of the big city.

I'm tired of the guy with his sports car revving it up at six in the

morning and ripping down the street.

I'm tired of having my neighbors look into my backyard from

their second floor bedroom.

If only I could get out of here, right?

If only I could experience that.

I don't need all those possessions.

I don't need all those things.

Well, you still indeed may be ensnared by the cares of this world if it is

your ultimate goal to be relaxed.

To be entertained, even if it's in a simple way, right?

To just eat simple food and simple drink.

You may indeed still be ensnared by the cares of this world, and also recognize

that even in a situation like that.

That doesn't require a New York City finance job.

It still requires money.

It still requires wealth.

You still have to be able to pay for those things, and so the two

are very intrinsically linked.

The foolish farmer thinks that he can control his life by

building these barns, right?

By building these barns and storing these crops and storing his goods, right?

He has so many goods, in fact, that he needs barns to store them

in, and he thinks that the way that he'll be able to access what

the world promises that he needs.

Is through his wealth and that way he can relax and eat

and drink and be entertained.

He comforts his anxious soul with the false assurance of worldly possessions.

But what does God say to him?

He says, fool, you don't get to have any of those things.

Follow the logic that Jesus is laying out here.

The farmer was foolish because he thought that he could soothe his worries.

He was wrong though because his and his death proves that, right?

Because Jesus, because God was able to demand his soul that very night,

it demonstrates that God is the one who is fully and completely in

control of his life, and that is true of you and I as well, right?

Your retirement accounts very well could have gone to zero, and there's nothing

you could have D done to call Donald Trump and convince him to end the war in Iran.

You could not have used your motorboat, that you just got to

cruise over there and reopen the strait of horror moves by yourself.

That's not something you could have done.

There are plenty of houses that burn down with working fire systems.

There are many children who choose.

To abandon their parents after years of receiving care and instruction

and provision, and there may be indeed nothing that you can do.

The reality is that in you and of yourself, you cannot control your life.

You aren't even at the elite level.

The farmer is.

But even just like the farmer, you do not control your death.

And there are many aspects of your life that you do not control, but who does?

Who does control your life?

God controls your life.

God controls what happens to you.

God controls every aspect of it, and so we need to live.

We need to live with that truth in our minds.

Okay, so how do we do that though, right?

It's one thing to know that, but how do we actually do that?

How do we actually apply that into our daily lives?

Well.

Thankfully, Jesus does not leave us hanging.

We're gonna keep reading.

Now, there is a heading in the ESV.

It says, do not be anxious.

And that may suggest to you that this is like a new section or a

new logical argument or something.

But I actually think that heading is fine, but I think it could actually lead

us to misinterpret Jesus' full argument because verse 22 says, and right, and

in connection to what was said before.

So in verse 22, it says, and he said to his disciples.

Quoting Jesus, therefore, right?

So because of the parable of the foolish farmer, therefore Jesus

is going to give us instruction.

He says, therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.

Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body.

What you'll put on for life is more than food in the body, more than clothing.

So the solution to anxiety is stop.

Stop being anxious.

No more.

Well, yeah, actually that is what Jesus says, but you know well that if you just

tell yourself, stop no more and you don't replace that thinking with something

else, you're gonna go right back to it.

And Jesus knows that as well.

Keep reading with me what he says that we are to do.

So he says, do not be anxious about your life.

And in verse 24, consider the ravens.

They neither sow nor reap.

They have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them of how much

more value are you than the birds.

Our second point for this morning is think about God's B

birds to increase your faith.

Think about God's birds to increase your faith.

Jesus is indeed saying, stop being anxious.

But he's not just saying Stop being anxious.

He's saying, be deliberate to replace what you were thinking about before with truth.

Anxiety grows in our hearts when we think about, when we ponder, when

we consider things that are not true or things that are uncertain.

But faith grows in our hearts when we think about, when we ponder,

when we meditate, when we consider.

Things that are true, like God's faithful provision, his fatherly care and his

absolute control over all of our life.

The farmer, the foolish farmer wrongly, calms himself down by

promising relaxation, food and entertainment that will come.

You might, in a similar way, promise yourself things like, once I get that job.

Once I get that promotion, then I'll finally be able to pay for the mortgage.

That's a little bit too much for us to handle right now.

Once that comes my way, everything's gonna be okay.

I'll be all right.

You might need to tell yourself, I say need not in a true sense, but you

feel the need to tell yourself that after a long day of work, the thing

that you need is to open up a beer and that's gonna solve your problems or.

Take drugs or do zen,

you might tell yourself that in order for you to see your kids, your grandkids,

rather, you need to have a healthy diet and a great routine of exercise.

And if you do those things, then you'll be able to see your kids and

see them get married and do all the things that you want to do with them.

But if you're struggling with those things or other things, if

you're struggling with anxieties and cares over money, your career.

The future, the prescription is not just stop worrying.

The prescription is to replace wrong thinking, with the right thinking, which

is why Jesus says to consider the ravens.

Now, I could take that, make that a principle, and apply

that in different ways.

That wouldn't be wrong to do, but I don't want to miss the simplicity of

what Jesus is telling us to do here.

He is telling us very specific instructions, right?

He says, consider the ravens.

Look at the birds, and he even tells us how we're supposed to consider them.

He says, you're supposed to think about how they don't sew.

You've never seen a bird making a farm.

There's never been fields made by birds, right?

There are no birds getting into John Deere combines going

out to collect their harvest.

They have neither storehouse nor barn yet.

God feeds them.

Isn't that amazing?

Think about the millions of birds that are in North Texas, just right around

here that ha don't have any of those things and God provides for them.

But he goes on, he says, of how much more value are you than the birds?

You are made in the image of God.

You are his son.

And if he cares about the birds like that, then how much more

is he gonna care about you?

So this is a simple, in many ways, simple instruction, and we'd have

complex hearts and complex lives, and the problems we face are not simple.

And we may be tempted to think that for those complex problems and those

sophisticated things that are happening, we need really dramatic solutions.

But Jesus gives us a simple one.

So don't be so prideful as to ignore this simple instruction from God.

Consider the bird.

Let's keep reading a little bit.

Verse 25.

Jesus is going to make sure that we don't miss the crux of what he presented

in the parable of the foolish farmer.

And he says this, and which of you by being anxious can add a single hour

to the span of your life when you are anxious, it doesn't do anything for you.

You are not in control through your anxiety or through your pursuit of

soothing your anxiety to the extent that it will make an impact of even an hour.

And then he says, why are you anxious about the rest?

So if you recognize that you are in that little bit of control, and God

is in perfect control and perfectly sovereign, and he cares for you

and you are made in his image.

Then why do you need to worry about the rest?

Here we go with another simple set of instructions.

Consider the lilies, how they grow.

They neither toil nor spend yet.

I tell you, even Solomon, in all his glory with all the gold and the jewels

and the temple and the gardens and everything that King Solomon had,

even King Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

But if God so closed the grass, which I hope you saw on the drive up here,

the grass by the freeway is covered in flowers, yellow, purple, blue.

If God is willing to decorate the sides of Texas freeways

and those are run over by mowers and thrown into the

fire, how much more will you?

Will he clothe you, owe you of little faith, owe you of little faith.

Jesus is connecting our faith to how we consider things.

This is something Pastor Rod talked about in our first session, right?

Your Heart is a product of many things, but Jesus is telling us very clear that

we are to consider these things, right?

It's not just.

That we are to have some sort of ones and zeros about this.

It's not just that we're supposed to have some sort of

bits of information about this.

We are to consider them, we're to ponder them.

If I told you that the barometric pressure in this room dropped a hundred millibars

in the last minute, why would you care?

Why would that matter?

It's maybe true.

It's not true.

Don't worry.

Maybe it's true though.

But why would it matter?

Unless you understood the implications of that and you had considered

what that meant, which might mean that a tornado is upon us, right?

Which would then cause you not to just sit in your chair and stare at

me as I told you that information.

It would cause you to get up and do something different.

Maybe, I don't know where you would run, but I don't know.

But maybe into the closet back there.

We'd all cram into that closet.

I don't know where you, but you do something right.

And in a similar way, we're not just supposed to know things about God,

but we are to consider and ponder the amazing reality of the fact

that he cares for us and loves us.

And so, uh, Jesus is calling us to consider that and he condemns those

who do not do such consideration with having little faith.

I know the male brain is different from different from the women folk.

My wife accuses me of this sort of stuff all the time.

She does this in a joking way, but she says, you forget about me all the time.

You forget about me all the time.

And I'm like, no, what are you talking about?

I'm going, don't forget about you.

She's like, yes, you do.

Every night when you go to sleep, you forget about me.

I'm like, what?

What are you talking about?

And she's like, you don't remember me?

I'm like.

And I'm like, do you remember me?

And she's like, yes.

I think about you all night as I sleep.

I think about you all night.

Right?

I'm like, okay, okay.

But, but I imagine I've had this experience where I go to work and I put

my head down and I have forgotten about my wife because of how my brain works.

I'm so focused in on the things that I need to do that day, and it's not

until I pull my head up at the end of the day that I'm like, oh wow.

All right.

What, what, where am I?

Who am I?

Right?

You've gone through your days with your head down, not thinking

about the promises of God.

You've put your head down and done your work, done your tasks,

and not thought about who God is.

And so, as men, I think we need to build into our lives points of interjection

where we can break that habit.

Uh, you know, I know for many of you, I, I don't know specifically, but I know

it's probably likely for many of you.

'cause I've heard this many times is that, you know, Monday morning you can

have that swell of anxiety as you walk to your car to get in, to go to work.

Or as you walk into your home office, you can think about the week and

all the things ahead of you, and you can feel that rush of anxiety.

Well, maybe you need to, you use the door to your office or the door to your

car as a reminder that now I'm gonna begin to think about the promises of God.

Instead of thinking about the anxious things that are gonna consume my mind.

Now I'm gonna.

Literally, maybe think about the birds, think about the lilies.

Maybe you need to set a reminder for you, maybe not one that goes

off, but set a reminder for you that pops up on your phone for the

middle of a stressful meeting so that you can, oh, wait a minute.

I need to snap out of this.

I need to remember that God cares for me, that he's gonna provide, that he loves me.

Even in the middle of that meeting, maybe you need to talk to your wife

and say, can you please help me?

Talk about the promises of God at the dinner table.

It's good to talk about the struggles of life, but maybe at the dinner table,

you can take that as an opportunity to say, we're gonna talk about how

God provides for us, how God loves us, how he made us in his image, and what

a wonderful, amazing thing that is.

Maybe go on a walk, leave your earbuds behind your AirPods and

listen for the birds, and use that to prompt you to remember.

Who God is and what he's done for you, and to look at the flowers as you walk

by them and to remember those things.

I don't want you to miss the simplicity of this.

There's certainly other ways we could apply this, but we should

at least begin by doing the simple instruction from God to help us

with the anxieties that we may face.

Why does this work?

We already talked about that, but just to make sure, you know, it doesn't work

in some sort of just automatic sense.

Practice.

This is a training, this is a con consideration that goes over

multiple days, multiple weeks.

But if we are to not be anxious, this is ultimately how we are going to do that.

Okay?

Up to this point, we've considered the things that are in our

hearts, in our minds, how do we, how we do things on the inside.

But as you know.

The things that happen on the inside flow outward into external action, right?

We heard the foolish farmer tell himself things, right?

They were wrong.

They were incorrect, but he was telling himself things.

He was addressing himself, and because of the things that he told himself, he

then went and did things right because of what he talked to himself about.

He went and built Barnes.

He went and pursued the promises of relaxation and food and drink

and entertainment and merriment.

He acted because of what he was thinking, and we should expect that when we act

in accordance to what God is calling us, that we will act differently.

Let's keep reading.

Let's keep reading.

Verse 29 in Luke 12 where we've been says this.

And do not seek what you two are.

You are to eat and what you are to drink nor be worried.

So before he was saying, do not be anxious.

Now he's saying, do not seek.

Do not seek for all the nations of the world.

Seek after these things and your father knows that you need them.

Instead, seek his kingdom and these things will be added to you.

Well, obviously you're gonna have to seek the dining hall, right?

You're gonna have to get over there for lunch.

So it can't be that you are to just go home and sit on your couch, right?

That that can't be the case.

'cause if you were to go home and sit on your couch and wait for God to

bring Uber Eats to your house to feed you, and for money to get deposited

into your account by tariffs that.

Trump collected or whatever, it's not gonna work.

You know that what we are to do here is not to pursue after those things.

Those things are not to dominate the way we make decisions.

Jesus continues Fear not little flock for it.

It is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

That's such a sweet reminder in this, right?

It is.

God's kingdom that he is going to give you is his.

You didn't make his kingdom.

You didn't invent what his kingdom looks like or how it works, but it's

his pleasure to give that to you.

And in a similar way, right?

The seed that goes into the good soil will produce 40, 60, 80 fold.

But again, we can't just go home and sit down because Jesus has given us

instructions, even in the context of this, to do things right, to seek, to not seek.

What you are to eat and what you're to drink, but to instead seek the kingdom.

Well, what does that look like?

Well, verse 31, he gives us yet another, it feels like overly simple instruction.

Sell your possessions and give to the needy.

And in fact, he doesn't give us more, at least here.

And what will that do?

That will provide for yourselves or you will provide yourselves with money bags

that do not grow old in a treasure.

In heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth

destroys for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also.

So our third point for this morning is be ready to give up

everything for God's kingdom.

Be ready to give up everything for God's kingdom.

It's his kingdom.

Don't forget that, but he has called you to do things.

And we are not to seek, we're not to act out in seeking what we are to eat and what

we are to drink like the foolish farmer.

Instead, we're to do something that's kind of radical.

If you were talking to somebody and they told you, wow, I had just invested in

this stock and it made me tons of money, or My business venture has gone so well

in this last year, it's just amazing.

Or I got this big inheritance.

I doubt.

Our first instinct would be to say, oh, well great.

You get to now sell that and give the money to the poor.

Uh, we wouldn't do that.

And, and don't, don't hear me wrong.

We don't wanna be legalistic about this.

Right.

The farmer is not condemned because he was rich.

He's not condemned because he had a plentiful crop.

He is not condemned because he even had one barn.

He's condemned because he wasn't being rich.

Towards God, an Anais and sfi, right?

They are judged by God, not because they didn't give every cent of the

proceeds from their land to the church.

That's not what they're judged for.

They're judged because they lied, because they were trying

to control their situation.

Or think of the rich young ruler, right, who does all of

the things that the law demands.

But then Jesus says, go and sell your possessions, and what that reveals

about his obedience to the law.

Is that he was doing those things because he wanted to make himself righteous.

He wanted to make himself right before the Lord.

And when Jesus says, go and sell your possessions, it reveals to him, reveals to

us at least that his heart was not right.

Sell your possessions.

So again, not a legalistic way of you all need to now go

and make your net worth zero.

That is not what Jesus is commanding us to do.

Rather, we are to be ready to have a heart that has the things that God has given us.

Held in our hands ready for him to do with them as he wills.

I do want to say though, that it may be the case this morning that

you have an idol in your life.

There may be something in your life that you look at and you say, this

is the thing that's gonna provide me all the comfort of the world.

It could be a lot of things, right?

It could be your house, it could be a car, it could be your retirement.

It could be some sort of prize possession, some sort of collectible.

Consider your things.

Is there an idol in your life that you are relying on?

And if there is an immediate application of this as you in are trying to

seek the kingdom may be to sell that thing and not just keep the profits.

So that you can buy it again later or so that you can, so that you

can buy something else, but give that money to the poor, right?

Get rid of the idle, cut off the vine that has thorns on it

that may be dragging you down.

But we may not all have idols like that in our lives, so at the very

least, we ought to be ready, right?

We'd be ought to be ready for God to take things.

Think about something you love.

Maybe you don't idolize it.

Maybe it's not to that level, but would you be ready without flinching to sell

that thing for the sake of the kingdom?

You should be able to do that with all the things that you have because

you know that those belong to God.

You know that you actually don't have control over those things.

He's the one that has control over those things.

So that's another way that you might apply this.

I know there's people in our church that.

I'm not gonna name their names, but are good examples of this.

There's a couple guys who I've talked to in our church who have given up careers.

They've given up careers that hold so much potential.

There's so much earnings, so much power.

They've given up careers so that they can just have jobs so that they can

raise their family, so that they can serve their church, and they've held,

in a sense, their possessions openly to God and have been willing to do that.

That's a remarkable thing.

There's some people who live in smaller homes or live in apartments because they

recognize the way that God has given them.

The access to wealth means that in order for them to have that dream home, they

would have to commit so much of their life, so much of their time to earning

money, that it would indeed pull their attention away from seeking God's kingdom.

I know we don't have specific names, but those of you who tithe.

Or doing the right thing.

You're recognizing that this money is God's money.

You're recognizing that this is not my own, but that it is something that belongs

to God, and that is an act of worship.

That's an act of faith as you hand that money over, right?

You're not storing it in your barn, you're handing it to God and recognizing

that he is the one who is sovereign, who is in control of every dollar you have.

So.

If you don't tithe, maybe this is the time to tithe.

I know it's always awkward for a pastor to mention that, but maybe now is

the time for you to tithe as a way of demonstrating and, and seeking the kingdom

as opposed to building your own barns.

Maybe you've thought about heaven.

I hope you have.

I, I hope you have.

Maybe you thought about heaven, and if you think about heaven in the right way.

I imagine that you have not been concerned about what sort of retirement

plan is available for you in heaven.

I imagine that you have not been anxiously wondering whether the

deductible on the health insurance plan is gonna be $10,000 or $5,000.

You know, you're not wondering or worried is there gonna be

food in the grocery store?

I don't.

Is there gonna be food in the grocery store?

You haven't thought those things, I imagine, because you have a right

understanding of what heaven is.

You understand that God is sovereign over everything.

He is the one who's going to provide for us into eternity.

He's the one who is able to make all of those things happen.

So in some sense, you have a right understanding of heaven.

You have a right faith in who God is.

But don't forget that the same God who is going to care for you for eternity

in all of the ways that you know he will is the same father who loves you today.

Who cares for you today?

Yes, indeed.

We live in a fallen world.

Yes, indeed.

The effects of sin are all around us.

God is not necessarily gonna provide you the Lamborghini, but

he does know that you'd need a job and you need a car to get to work.

He's going to care for you.

May not be in the way that you imagine, may not be in the way that you like,

but he's your father and he loves you.

We need to apply that sort of thinking that we have about God

and who he is to our daily lives.

The warning of this thorny soil is sobering.

If the cares and the riches and the pleasures of this life dominate

us, the fruit will never mature.

We may look like Christians, but we will prove to have no

real inheritance in the kingdom.

And we should care deeply that we are looking into the spiritual mirror and

recognizing where we may have thorns growing up around us, pulling us down.

Where is your heart?

Where is your heart for where your treasure is?

There?

Your heart will be Also, are you allowing it to be quietly choked out

amidst the cares and the anxieties of this life, or are you courageously.

Pursuing God's promises.

Let me pray for us.

Let's pray that God would search our hearts, expose any thorns

that are choking us, and give us the grace to be rich towards him.

Lord, thank you for these men.

Again, thank you that they were willing after a busy season at Compass and many of

them serving in many ways to come here, to take the time to open your word together,

to talk to brothers about their faith to.

To care about your things, to care about the treasures that

we want to have in heaven.

Lord, help us to inspect our hearts.

Help us to,

to love the things that you love.

Help us to be humble.

Help us to be eager or expose the things that may be wearing us down.

Uh, whether it's the stones, whether it's the thorns, whatever it may be.

Lord, uh, please help us.

I pray this in your son's name, amen.