Rooted: Session One: The Heart of the Matter | Pastor Rod

Speaker 2: Well, brothers, I'm so excited to be spending time with you this weekend.

Um, let me commend you, first of all for being here, making time to be here.

Is this a me issue?

No, just keep talking.

Okay.

Let me commend you for making time to be here.

We know that to get away at all from your, your jobs and your families

and other, the things that, that are happening on a Friday and Saturday night.

It can be really hard to do, and so we work really hard to make

sure that this is worth your time, this is valuable, and that you walk

away better as a result of this.

Goal for the weekend is really simple.

We want to improve and increase your love for God and your love for others.

This is the great commandment.

This is what Jesus wants us to do.

Trouble with that though, is that this isn't an easy thing.

This is one of the most challenging things to do because it requires

a whole lot of effort on our part.

And sometimes things like this can, can feel like an obstruction to your

calendar, to your agenda, to things that you might already want to do.

You know, spending time with the wife and hanging out with the kids, or going

and finishing that project in the garage that's been working on you for months.

Now, this is so critical that you're here though, and we're so grateful for you.

I want you to also know that your pastors have been praying for you individually.

Um, we knew who was gonna be here.

And of course, because we knew who was coming, we were able to take your names

and just plug away at you day by day to pray for your attendance here and to pray

that God would make you receptive to all the things that we want to have happen.

So, uh, I want you to first of all be encouraged.

You're here and you made it.

For some of you, there's resistance to even get here in the first place.

There's lots of things on your calendar and there's lots of things that would

press you to say, there's other things I want to do, but you're being here so good.

Let me now exhort you as we prepare to jump into a series of four sermons

over the course of less than, well, we'll be here for a little over 24

hours, but the sermon time is gonna be compressed into less than that.

So you're about to get a lot of Bible and trust that you're

here because you want that.

We're excited for you to have this.

So let me exhort you not only to be here, but to be as attentive.

Uh, David mentioned that, I think Lewis prayed that, um, I don't know either.

Lewis prayed that, oh, there it is.

And it's, it's one of the.

It, you're here and that's great, but it's also important that you be here mentally,

that you be here with your whole person.

In fact, that's really what this weekend is about.

Let me just start us off by taking us to our first text.

Uh, we are going to be in Mark chapter four.

Uh, you know that we're gonna be in the Parable of the Souls, but as you're

pulling out your Bible, let me just tell you quickly why we're doing this together.

The parable of the soils is one of the most critical parables that Jesus

tells because he says it really is a linchpin to the other parables.

If you can't get this one, Jesus says, your disciples, you're gonna have

a hard time understanding the rest.

So this one is going to clarify for us the kind of life that God expects

of those who are his followers.

You're gonna find out that there's four different kinds of soils and the soils

represent our hearts, and only one of those soils is actually productive.

Only one of those soils does what God designed it to do.

The reason we're preaching it to you, a room of what we presume is generally

believers is because the first three soils are going to warn us about the

dangers and the hazards that can befall all sorts of professing believers.

First one accepting.

We'll talk about that one in a second.

But if you're a fourth soil kind of guy, and that's the one that you should be,

there's going to be hazards and dangers that you need to be well aware of in

your Christian life so that you don't fall prey to the traps that catastrophize

and ruin all sorts of Christians.

In fact, one of the texts you're gonna get to reminds me of what Paul

says in one Timothy chapter six.

He says, because people are striving after riches.

He says, people ruin themselves.

Ruin themselves because they're striving after money.

They're looking after that kind of security.

I don't wanna preach Pastor Mark's sermon, but that's one of the dangers.

Another danger is that you get distracted.

Your heart is elsewhere.

You're here preaching, you hear teaching, and you're somewhere else because

you're thinking about the bills and the fight that you had with your kids.

You're thinking about the project that hasn't closed yet.

You're hoping that you're gonna get an email about that soon.

Maybe you've got grandkids that you're thinking about who are wayward, or

they're having a difficult time in school.

You might be thinking about your retirement.

Am I gonna have enough money?

I mean, you could be thinking about almost anything right now, and

that is exactly the danger that we're warned about in the parable.

Distractions, temptations, things that constrict and ultimately remove

the oxygen supply for your faith.

Choking it out and killing it.

There are lots of hazards and dangers, but why this parable right now?

Then we want to talk about this one because it's evergreen.

This is the perennial issues that confront real Christianity and because your

pastors are concerned that you bear fruit.

And keeping with repentance.

And because your pastors are concerned that you continue to level up in your

faith, we think this is the right set of sermons for you for this weekend.

Some of your brothers are unable to make it.

Um, we trust that God will use this and maybe they'll listen to

it later, but God wants you here.

You're here.

God clearly wants you here.

We want you to listen.

We want you to be blessed.

We've worked hard for you because we think this is so valuable.

Let me encourage you again and exhort you make this weekend count.

We're bringing our A game.

We never bring anything less, of course, but we're bringing you our very best

part of you bringing your very best is coming with the receptive heart.

We'll talk about that very soon, in fact.

But let me just give you the, the, the point of this particular sermon.

One of the things we're gonna see is that different soils respond differently

depending on one singular item, and it's a complicated and simple topic.

It's called your heart.

Here's, here's essentially my point of my sermon.

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

response, and that's really gonna be the underlying thesis for the whole weekend.

It's the condition of your heart that determines the

fruitfulness of your response.

Whether or not you make progress in your faith as a Christian is determined.

On the condition of your heart, whether or not it's receptive and

right with God, whether or not your heart is prepared to receive the word.

And it's because of this critical feature that we wanna make sure

we understand what's happening in the parable of the soils.

Let's go to, uh, mark chapter four.

I think there's something wrong with this.

Mark Chapter four, or my headset, one of the two.

Um, mark chapter four is where we're gonna be.

We're, we're not gonna, we're not gonna go through the whole thing.

We don't have time to do that.

Thank you, sir,

but check we will get well acquainted with it.

So starting at March chapter four, we're gonna look at verses one and two.

I'll try to fill in the gaps for you.

And then we're gonna look at verses 10 through 14 to hopefully get

acquainted with the text itself.

So starting at March chapter four, verses one and two again, Jesus

began to teach beside the sea.

And a very large crowd gathered about him.

Now, that's a big point here, and let's just start with this.

There's lots of people that are gonna be exposed to the word of God.

There's a large crowd, and Jesus is gonna speak to them.

He's gonna deliver the word to them.

So Jesus is experiencing such a large audience that he has to move inside

a boat and put himself on the scene.

That's what he does in verse one there, and the whole crowd

was beside the sea on the land.

In verse two, he was teaching them many things in parable.

And in his teaching, he said to them, and he began to tell the parable, let's just

understand here, what's happening is that Jesus is speaking the, the, the word,

the word of God to the crowd, and he's making clear what God expects of them.

We're gonna, we'll get back to the parable in a second here, but go

drop down to verses 10 through 14.

He tells the parable of the sower, we'll, we'll come back to it, but

he his disciples later on ask him when he was alone, those around

him and the 12 with the twelves.

Asked him about the parables and he said to them, to you, it has been

given the secret of the kingdom of God.

But for those outside, everything's in parables.

So that, and he's quoting Isaiah six here, they may indeed see but not perceive, and

they may indeed hear but not understand unless they should turn and be forgiven.

So this is a fascinating turn of events.

Already, Jesus is using the parable to say this kind of teaching.

Has a twofold function.

It actually does more than one thing.

And this simple story, even though it is simple, it actually has layered meaning.

Let's just start with this point.

Number one, we need to see the purpose of the parable, and the purpose is both

to teach, to reveal, and to conceal.

The parable that you're gonna go through this weekend has a twofold

function For those with ears to ear, uh, hear, Jesus is gonna say the parable

instructs and teaches and explains.

But for those who are hardhearted.

They're not going to hear it, they're not gonna be able to receive it.

He says, in fact, as he, as he quotes Isaiah six, that the parable functions

as a passive form of judgment.

The, the, the parable of the soils is one way that God hides truth from

those who don't want to hear truth.

Hopefully you already feel some of the tension here.

Jesus gives the word to all different kinds of people,

but not everybody hears it.

In fact, one of the challenges is at the heart of people.

Can hear an incredible message, an incredible sermon.

They can read an incredible text and still be unmoved.

The problem is not the word, the problem is the receptivity of the heart.

So Jesus is saying the parable then functions both to deliver truth and

to passively conceal information.

In fact, let me just do it this way here, uh, to the faithful, the word

opens up and deeper insights with every look as you get acquainted with

the word, if you're willing to hear.

Parables can be enormously productive in that they show you

things you wouldn't otherwise see.

But for those who are hardhearted to the unrepentant, those who respond

either passively or poorly, or even temporarily, the word closes,

it doesn't reveal, it conceals.

It becomes harder to understand, and this again, is a passive form of judgment.

Hence, we have Isaiah chapter six.

So the purpose of the parable is dual.

There's more than one purpose behind it.

And this weekend, whether or not you get a great deal from it or whether or not

you find it more confusing will again come back down to the condition of your heart.

Parables are actually pretty simple.

They're straightforward.

In fact, they're like things that are hidden in plain sight, and

you have some examples of that.

The FedEx logo, for instance, if you know the FedEx logo, you, you've,

maybe someone has pointed out to you, there's an arrow in the FedEx logo.

Can you see it?

You might've seen that before.

Someone pointed this.

Oh, there's an arrow in there, and it shows their movement.

They're making progress.

Or the Amazon logo.

It's got the, everything from A to Z.

The smile connects the two, you see?

Oh, I get it.

That's clever Advertising.

Or here's something I learned recently and maybe within the last 10 years

recently, I didn't realize that the gas gauge tells you what side of

the car that your gas tank is on.

I was like, oh, that's amazing.

There it is.

First time I learned that I was, my mind was blown.

My life was forever changed.

The parables can sometimes be like this.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it, but they're actually a little more

challenging than that because they're not just a matter of intellectual engagement.

You see, the parables are not just you saying, oh, I understand how this works.

It's A plus B equal C.

The parables require patience.

They require scrutiny and they're, they're gonna require more from you

than just your intellectual engagement.

It's actually heart level engagement.

There's a moral component to your understanding of scripture.

That is to say that when you open your Bible, it may not be that you

can't intellectually understand it.

It might be that there's sin that prohibits you from seeing what God

wants you to see in the parables.

The fact that they're both revelatory, they reveal and

conceal means at least two things.

First of all, the word is going to challenge you.

Parables are interesting because Jesus is saying, look to the faithful, it

reveals more, but to those who are unrepentant, it closes off truth.

Which tells me then if you're a Christian and you approach your Bible,

there will be times and you should expect it where the word is going

to challenge your understanding.

It's going to challenge your receptivity.

It's going to challenge your ability to put your arms around the text.

Jesus, when he was preaching about eating his flesh and drinking

his blood, his disciples said, Jesus, this is really hard.

Who can understand it?

Who?

Who can listen to this?

You might remember this, and the, and the point is Jesus saying, if,

if that's what you're stumbling over, man, there's, there's more.

You hadn't heard nothing yet.

Scripture.

If you're engaging with it, rightly with a whole heart, will put you in a position

where you feel the difficulty of the word.

It's scripture never challenges you.

It's because you're not reading scripture, you're reading you in the scripture.

If you're reading scripture appropriately, you should recognize that the

revelation of what it shows you will often feel foreign and uncomfortable.

And it's largely dependent upon whether or not you have the heart to pursue it.

Every one of you will face this at some point.

The parables are a great picture of the word, confronting someone and saying,

do you have the will to listen to this?

Will you listen to the word and submit to it?

It's one thing to hear it.

We'll see that hearing is only one component and it's a shaky one at best.

The real work is the heart work of saying I, I will allow the Lord to challenge me.

I want the Lord to step on my toes.

In fact, one of the things that you can expect from scripture because

it both reveals and conceals, is that God will reward your patient.

Persistence.

One of the things that Pastor Paul says to his protege, Timothy,

he, he says, you know, the, the farmer who works hard, he'll be

the first one to receive the crops.

A soldier doesn't get, uh, get, get, uh, distracted by, uh, by civilian issues.

And then he closes off saying, think over what I say.

Think about what I'm saying, and the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

In other words, Timothy, just because he was a first entry

pastor didn't mean he understood everything that Pastor Paul said.

Isn't that comforting?

Paul's still confusing to me.

I still struggle with Paul and he told his own protege, Timothy, Hey,

just think about what I'm saying.

I know this is hard, but you'll get it eventually.

One of Paul's associates by the name of Peter said some things that

Paul writes are hard to understand.

So we should take comfort in the fact that scripture isn't supposed to be simple by

nature, and it is simple to understand.

There's, you know, there's layered, there's, there's a layeredness to

this, but I want you to recognize that approaching God rightly with

the right heart is going to mean I let him challenge me and I'm, I'm

expecting him to reward my patient.

Persistence, that word persistence is gonna come back to us in session

four, but for now, let's just be content with the fact that when.

We approach scripture and we recognize that this is both

a revealing and concealing.

This is gonna require more from me and not less becoming a Christian.

Submitting your life to Christ is just step one, opening your life to

the journey, and the excitement of being a Christian is wrought with

ups and downs and lefts and rights, and all sorts of unpredictable

nature unpredictability in your life.

The word's gonna challenge you and God will reward your patient.

Persistence.

The purpose of the parable then is to reveal and conceal truth,

and the most critical factor is the condition of your heart.

Okay.

With that said, then I want to take us to the first soil.

Um, and in fact, let's, uh, let's turn to Mark chapter four.

Go back there.

We're gonna look at verses three and four.

I'm gonna briefly cover their first soil.

And this one's the scariest one.

Well, I, I, I, I'm trying to make my case here.

They're all scary for different reasons, but take a look at this one.

It.

Mark chapter four, verses three and four.

He says, listen, behold, in fact, let me just point this out.

This is the only, so the, the parable of the sower is contained

in all three gospels, Matthew, mark, and Luke, I, there's four gospels.

But the three synoptics is what I mean by that.

Synoptics mean they all cover the same information, though in different ways.

Mark's account is the only one where he records Jesus saying, listen, behold.

Pay attention to this.

I chose Mark for this first session because Mark's approach to

this, I think is really helpful.

He's saying before he even says a word, Hey, pay close attention.

It's like saying, amen.

Amen.

Or it's like saying, Hey, I need you to pay really close

attention to what I'm about to say.

So he says, listen, behold.

And then he says, A sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path and the birds came and devoured it.

So Jesus now is covering this, this first, the first soil that we're gonna look at.

The first soil is called the path.

It's a hard soil, and as you might imagine, it's the kind of soil

that's trampled by human fes and by moving vehicles so that what

you have is a compacted soil.

It's really almost impossible to, to penetrate it with anything.

Safer, accept some, some weeds.

So Jesus is describing this kind of land right here.

The seed is tossed by the sower, and the sower is likely going to be here.

A reference to Jesus sowing the word of God to the people at the time.

Uh, it could refer to more than that, but the idea is that

the word is being sent out.

The word is being given.

And there's all different kinds of people who are gonna hear it.

And the first kind of people to hear it, the first kind of heart is the path.

Compacted hard, unreceptive.

He then says that this is the kind of soil where the birds of the air, the

birds of the air come and they devour it.

Um, that's interesting because Matthew also says the birds came

and devoured them as Matthew 13.

Um, the soil is so hard that the, the seeds can't go anywhere, which again,

if the seed is the word of God, the birds swoop down, come and steal it.

As soon as that there's an opportunity, one of the challenges

forward, the first soil.

Is that the soil has no place to land.

They're exposed to the word.

And remember, Jesus is the sower.

He's giving out the quality word.

This is the best preaching you're ever gonna hear.

And Jesus sends it out and some hearts are just so hard.

They're like, I don't want anything to do with that.

One of your challenges then is not to be the kind of person who

only haphazardly hears the word.

Uh, the right heart before God is not defined by someone who's

resistant to God's movements, but someone who welcomes it.

And that kind of person is gonna be a person who gives careful,

considered close, thorough, engaged attention to the word.

In fact, I'll make the case that it's even a little, it's more than that.

But let's just do that for point number two here.

If you're going to have the right heart before God, it's

gotta be defined this way.

You gotta give the best attention, your best attention to the word.

You gotta give it your best.

It.

Anything short of that can cause you to spiritually drift and disengage, and

this is one of our greatest temptations.

We all know what this is like.

We know what it feels like to have the word go one in one ear and out the other,

or to feel like we're just so elsewhere that we're not present at The word

loses its flavor, loses its punchiness.

Uh, maybe you're familiar with this idea here.

Uh, we live in a digital age of distraction.

You've heard this before, uh, but maybe you've noticed that it's

getting harder and not easier.

And in fact, there are studies, recent studies that are showing that even within

the context of a marriage, that husbands or wives are struggling to communicate

better because their phones are presenting a persistent threat to their marriage.

Uh, one study that came out of the University of Chicago, uh,

in 2025, no, this one isn't 25.

Recently, within the last five years.

The University of Chicago found that even the mere presence of a cell phone of a,

of a smart device, face down, turned off, reduces available cognitive capacity.

The presence of your phone in front of you makes it harder for you to pay attention.

Have you figured this out for yourself?

I find that to be true.

I, I'm, I'm, I'm a, I'm a Bible notes taker on my, my iPad, on my phone,

on my, on my computer, but it's really hard to resist a notification.

Especially during preaching when I'm like, oh, I'm taking notes and I see

things, oh, look what's Danny want.

I'll look at what Danny's want.

I'll find, oh, I got a notification about this other thing.

Our attention is being threatened all the time, and it's becoming so difficult

for us that we're atrophying the very muscles that give us the ability

to really connect with the truth.

Um, there's another study that was done in 2025 that said that our

culture is developing something called online vigilance, which

is a cog, a constant cognitive preoccupation with the online world.

We're no longer able to be present because we're vigilant

about what's happening out there.

We're thinking about all the other things and about, you know, this

person tweeted at this person.

Why is Justin Peters mad at this guy?

We have all of these things that accost us, that take us away

from what we're called to do.

This habit of living has dramatic implications for the way that we

engage with the word of God, because you can't just turn that off.

We think we can, we think we're good at just saying, well, I'm just gonna

practice being distracted by these things.

And then when I come to the word of God or when I come to preaching,

I'm gonna be so locked in and we really struggle with this.

We, we really struggle.

In fact, scripture knows that this is a problem even before the advent

of these things, which is why it says keep your heart with all vigilance.

This is Proverbs 4 23 for from it flows the springs of life.

I told you at the beginning of the sermon that the thing that's going

to affect every aspect of your life that's gonna determine the

fruitfulness of your life is your heart.

In fact, I don't have enough time to go through this, but let me just tell you

progress 4 23 is, is probably one of the best texts, but scripture is replete.

With over a thousand references, well, maybe just under, actually,

uh, let's just call it a thousand references to your heart.

Scripture is very concerned about your heart.

Keep a close watch on it.

You're to guarded, you're to instruct your heart, you're to have your heart lean

or, or inclined toward the Lord's word.

The, the scripture screams at you to make sure that your heart

is locked in with the Lord.

So, Proverbs 4 23.

Here's three quick takeaways in from this little, this little text.

Do I have it here?

I do.

Okay.

First of all, notice the what.

Keep your heart.

If you're going to give God your best attention, there's no way

you're gonna do it without keeping a close watch on your heart.

You're to guard, you're to protect, you're to give careful attention to it.

Your heart has to be guarded.

It will not do itself.

Your sinful nature still inclines you to do the wrong thing, and therefore,

if you let the foot off the gas, you're gonna find that your heart drifts.

This is the natural human tendency.

Even as a Christian, the spirit will convict you and call you

back, but it's our job to keep our hearts with all vigilance.

You must keep your hearts all right.

You must point your heart at the truth.

This is why we're called Compass Bible Church, where we want the compass of God's

word to incline us to the right direction, and it's our job to follow that.

Secondly, notice from this text the how.

How are you gonna keep your heart all vigilance?

That's the kind of terminology that makes you think this is

not a haphazard casual affair.

This is the kind of thing where scripture's saying, gear up, get ready.

Make sure that your vigilance over your heart is diligent.

It's careful, it is clear-eyed.

It is the kind of vigilance that that makes you say, I'm gonna get up early.

If I need you to spend time with the word of God, I'm gonna go to bed

later if I need to, so I can pray and intervene and intercede from my family.

It's the kind of vigilance that says, I don't care what happens this weekend.

I'm going to men's retreat 'cause I want to be with the brothers and help them.

Help me guard my heart.

I need help.

That's a community process.

The what?

Keep your heart the how with all vigilance, which means I'm diligent.

Thirdly, the why from your heart.

From the heart, from that source, everything else comes.

Your heart is the source of your whole life, which bears an explanation.

The heart as a singular idea in scripture covers the whole of you.

A heart can be a synonym for saying you the real you, your real person,

the engine, the vehicle of your.

But practically, scripture speaks about your heart in three overlapping ways.

Okay, I'm just gonna be quick on this three overlapping ways.

Scripture talks about your heart.

It is a thinking heart that is, your heart is not merely a feeling component.

It is actually the way that you think.

Your heart thinks your heart reasons, and therefore scripture then calls you

to inform or instruct your heart with the scriptures with the word of God.

The second component is one that you would expect if the first one is thinking.

The second one is the feeling.

Or the affection where you set your heart's Love.

Love is a choice on your part.

You can choose to stoke a fire for your favorite baseball team.

Maybe you're a Cubs fan and you're really admin adamant about loving and

stoking the fire for the Cubs or the Cowboys or whatever else you're into.

You choose your affections and you make your affections the

vehicle that drives your life.

In many ways it's a chosen vehicle.

So thinking, feeling, and then finally, the deciding or the choosing.

Your heart does all three.

It chooses what to do.

It's called your will.

You choose what time to wake up, you choose what clothes to wear,

you choose how to spend your money.

In all of those activities, the thinking, feeling, and choosing

make up the inner person.

The totality of it.

So when scripture says to keep your heart, it's really saying guard your character.

Guard your person.

Make sure you do this because you want to be vigilant, because everything else

about you will stem from the quality of your heart and how receptive it is

to God's promptings, to God's movings.

So you have the, the whats, the how and the why.

Uh, our, our job is to make sure that we are giving our best attention to the word.

Because the word is what's going to inform us, instruct us, and change us.

This weekend, you have an opportunity to do exactly that, to approach

God and say, Lord, how's my heart?

How am I doing?

How's my walk with you?

How's my marriage?

How's my parenting?

How's my working?

Is my, is my serving my employer?

Am I doing that?

As a Christian, would you have the opportunity to examine

yourself in terms of your own sin?

Is there a sin that I've, I think, confessed.

Is there an area where I perpetually and continually fall short, and

maybe there's an explanation for that, that God wants me to see?

Is there, uh, something that's weighing me down or distracting me?

Is there a part of my life that consumes me and causes me to yearn for other things

that, that God would not approve of?

Here's another one I've dealt with in youth ministry all the time.

Am I apathetic at all?

Do I have a blase attitude toward the things of God?

Am I growing colder instead of hotter?

We've all had seasons of this.

Even Christians can go through seasons where we experience a dulling or

a diminishing of our passion and our, and our yearning for the Lord.

Maybe you're in that season.

There's ways to go out of that.

In fact, ways to go through that.

Give your best attention to the word.

Your heart needs this, it demands this.

That being the case, then.

As we look at this, uh, let me just encourage you from Acts chapter 17,

Acts 17:11

verse 11, if we're gonna give scripture our best attention, if we're gonna

give God our best attention, uh, notice how the Bereans act in verse.

11 of chapter 17, they received the word from the, from the

Apostle Paul as he was preaching.

He was, uh, going on his missionary journeys.

They received the word with all eagerness.

They examine the scriptures daily to see if these things that he's saying

were so, there was too easy here.

Notice this eagerness and examination.

There's an eagerness of receptivity to the word that says, yes, I need this.

Give me this.

And then once they got it, they didn't just swallow it

wholesale, they examined it.

They meditated upon it.

They thought about it, they engaged with it.

They looked at the scriptures, they looked at the cross references.

They opened up their Bible and says, let me make sure that this is true.

Let me give, let me give God my attention here.

And so we see things from these guys that are really helpful.

We see things from them that help us to understand.

No, that's not, that shouldn't be there.

Okay?

We see from them things that we, we should, we should examine

because we want to be the same.

So at the very minimum, now, when we think about the way that we approach

the word, whether it's in privates, in your own Bible time, or whether it's

corporate gatherings like this, this means that when you approach the word, it's

really important that you come hungry.

It's really important that you get yourself ready, that you prepare

your heart to receive the word.

Remember the path, the word bounces off and the birds come

down and just take it away.

The path is a hard heart that's practiced at being resistant.

Think about that.

The path has had practice at being resistant.

It's pushed down.

It's given repeated attempts to respond, and yet because of the foot traffic and

because of the constant pressing down, the path grows hard, it's practiced.

The same thing can be true for the way that the tender

heart responds to God's word.

It is a practiced receptivity.

It's practice, it's habitual.

It is a choice on your part to receive the word with tenderness,

with reception, and to say, God, I want to be changed by your word.

Challenge me.

So when you open up your Bible in the morning, maybe half the battle is you

just taking your heart to prayer and saying, Lord, I'm gonna open your word.

I want to feed from it.

Change me, challenge me, confront me.

Open my heart, Lord, if I need heart surgery, get in there

and do whatever you need to do.

You.

I need you more than I need my next paycheck, more than I need the next

breath that comes into my lungs.

I need you, Lord.

Please open my eyes.

I'm reading through Leviticus.

Lord, I don't understand half of what I'm reading.

Please help me open my heart to receive what I need to get from your word.

Show up to the Lord.

Pray it up.

Show up to the Lord whenever you have opportunity in the word, give

your best energy, not your leftovers.

This is so critical.

One of the things I learned about marriage is that when I get home.

I'm, I'm tired.

Um, and especially if I've had counseling appointments and I've talked to, you

know, this person for this thing and this person, I'm just emotionally exhausted.

Um, I'm physically just kind of antsy 'cause I've been sitting

down for hours when I get home.

I'm just not ready to engage with my wife or my kids.

You know, I'm, I get there, I'm kind, I'm still on work mode.

I put my stuff down on the counter on the How's the day?

Oh, is good.

You know, we're working on things and, and then I'm just kind of

in this strange mode where Chris is like, are you, are you okay?

Is everything around?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, yes, yes.

I'm here.

I'm here now.

I'm just not ready for that.

So I've learned that one of the things I have to do when I get home is I have

to stay in my garage and just pray for just a, a few minutes at most to say,

Lord, I, I, I need to put on my dad hat.

I'm, I'm wearing my pastor hat.

I'm thinking about the problems, you know, for Bob and for Jim and for Susie.

And I'm thinking about their issues and what's that's gonna, what that's

gonna apply for us, and whether or not this thing needs to be changed.

I need to commit that to the Lord.

And I need to give God my best energy in the same way that I come home

and I wanna give my family my best energy, at least for what I have.

God is a person and he relates to you in much the same way.

It's, it's often you who are fluctuating.

You're the one who's, uh, who's going up and down, left and right.

I want you to show up.

I want you to be there.

I want you to come hungry, and I want you to put pride away.

Let the word do its work so often.

It's our own resistance to God.

It's our own distraction.

It's our own pride.

I don't want you to change my life.

God, I like my life the way it is.

I like the amount of money that I make.

I like the job that I have.

I like the number of kids that I have.

I like the way I spend my free time.

I don't want you to, and, and crouch upon that Lord.

Um, the, the right heart before God is the kind of heart that says, do do damage.

Lord do, do some holy violence on my life.

And brothers, I, I, I know this kind of mentality.

This is not natural.

Even for a lot of Christians, we, we like sermons that they're

edifying, they're encouraging.

Maybe I know the Bible a little better, but we really don't want a whole lot of

stepping on our toes and God is gracious.

And then he doesn't do this all at once.

But I would love for you to see that your heart has to be prayed up or

ready to engage with this word and to say, Lord, do your worst to me.

Do your whatever is necessary for you to be glorified and for me to love people

the way I'm supposed to do whatever.

It's all on the table.

Dangerous thing to pray, but the right thing to pray.

The path doesn't do this.

The path is proud.

The path was resistant.

The path is practiced.

Unre receptivity you.

On the other hand, you show up with your best.

You're giving God your heart, your soul, your mind.

You're saying, God, I want you to do whatever you want to do to

me, so help me, please change me.

I want to be like Christ, whatever the cost.

Man, if only it were so easy just to open your Bible and say, man, I'm changed.

Things are just happening.

But we know that it's more than that.

Here's the challenging part, and this is the part that I didn't

cover for you yet, but this is why I think it's one of the scariest.

Verse 15.

When the path hears, this is the, the, the, the first heart compressed.

Compacted resistant.

When they hear someone steps in and immediately comes and takes away the word.

The devil is participating in the act of your hearing.

Now, whether it's him personally or whether it's his minions, I don't

think we need to argue much about that.

Satan could be personally responsible for some of you, sure.

But it's probably more likely that he's simply utilizing his resources,

his demonic hordes, along with the distraction that the world offers.

Remember the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Those are all three working against you.

Here we highlight the devil's activity.

Which tells us here that what's happening when you hear the word is more than simply

your, the, the follicles in your ears or the little hairs in your ears wiggling as

my voice is transmitted through the air.

No, there's actually things happening all around us right

now that we can't even see.

It's kind of like Elisha, as he prays for his servant to have eyes, to see

his eyes are open, he sees, oh man, there's hordes of people around us and

there's an angelic army even further beyond them who are here to protect us.

There is spiritual warfare happening, and that's why point number three is

that you need to recognize that the act of listening is spiritual warfare.

Your hearing, your reading, your intaking of the word of

God is not a neutral activity.

Therefore, you gotta be ready.

The enemy wants to interrupt your reception.

There's this thing called a, a jamer, a jamming device.

Where you can plug it into the, I mean these raspberry pies and all these

cool devices, you can plug in a jamer and it can jam different signals,

cell phone signals, Bluetooth signals.

I kind of want one just for the office when I'm getting, when I'm being irritated

by people's music is turn it off.

If I don't like what's happening is turn the computer off someday, maybe.

Um, but now I let them know my strategy.

I don't wanna do that.

Listening, hearing has all kinds of potential interruptions.

And if we're not aware, we can find ourselves quickly, un unaware that

we're being accosted by the enemy.

None the wiser.

Even right now.

Even right now, and I'm, this is not self-serving.

I'm not trying to make you listen to me better, but even right now, some of

you are being tempted just to, to think about anything else, because the act of

your listening is spiritually engaged.

It is spiritually charged.

You have an opposition of foe that wants to steal the, the word

that was sown in you so that you walk away from this unchanged.

You go back home and your wife is like, you're the same.

Your kids don't find you any more like Christ, your wife finds you.

No more self-sacrificing or no more authentic in your leadership.

Your church finds you no less godly, no less mature in your faith, and that's

the devil taking the word out of you.

He's really good at this guys.

We know this because we've heard countless sermons.

We've read the Bible and can't we all say, man, this is, I should

be further along than I am.

I should be godlier than I am right now.

This, the act of listening is spiritual warfare.

We gotta be aware of that.

People who receive the word Satan intervenes doesn't take root.

The compaction makes it really hard.

I just, you gotta anticipate demonic distraction when you engage with the word.

When you're interacting with the word of God, anytime you need to

recognize it's not neutral ground, um,

you really would do well to learn from the tactics that have worked on you.

One of the tactics, I I suspect that for a lot of you, especially on a Sunday

afternoon, is, Hey, aren't you hungry Now?

Your stomach gurgling is probably not an accident.

Your accident, the devil knows that you're hungry.

He would love to distract you from that third point that Pastor Pete is making.

Maybe it's his most important point.

And it's the point that he's like, Hey, I need you to hear this.

And, and then your stomach's gurgling.

You're like, you know what, Hutchins does sound good today.

For some of you, it might be like myself.

Maybe your notifications, you not learn to turn them off yet, so you get

something from the boss or you something else about the, you know, the, the team

that's playing later on, there's all sorts of things the devil could use.

You need to be prepared and to anticipate demonic distraction

into actively resist it.

And speaking of by that, by the way, uh, one of the things that we need

to do is aggressively focus, um, fighting for paying attention to God

and paying attention to his word.

As Angelo said, this could be one of the most important weekends of your

life, but I could say that whenever you open your Bible, it could be

one of the most important mornings or afternoons, or evenings of your

life whenever you open it, because God has something to say to you.

But it's often because we're tired, we're distracted, we're hungry,

we're we're, whatever else we find ourselves drifting and not giving

it the attention it deserves.

We need to aggressively give our best to the Lord.

Do aggressively focus on what, what's happening.

One of the things I miss about California is that there was this particular place

that my family and I used to like hiking.

It was called Whiting Ranch.

Uh, Whiting Ranch is beautiful.

Um, picturesque.

I mean, it's some of the best.

Scenery that California has to offer, uh, at least that

part, part, part of California.

Uh, but we got used to these regular reportings of mountain lion sightings.

Um, there was one that used to live in that area, so he was constantly

kind of around, but I never knew.

I, I would always see like, oh man, there's a mountain lion.

And so Kristen and the kids would hike all the time and I would

tell 'em, Hey, be very careful, please, or maybe don't go today.

You know, I heard there's a mountain lion siding there, please.

You know, be beware.

On a few occasions we went together and as dad, I, I'm, I'm on high alert, I

can enjoy the scenery and I can enjoy, you know, oh, this is a great trail.

But now every twig cracking.

I'm looking, you know, I'm taking my least favorite kid.

I say, go look.

Just kidding.

Just kidding.

Never did that.

I don't know what I'm paying attention.

If I, if I hear movement, if I see a shadow, I'm looking, I'm careful.

I want to know what's happening.

We're still having a good time, but I was also man, kids, stay close.

Stay close.

I don't want you to get too far ahead of me.

I don't want you to be too far up behind me.

I remember this awful story where one kid actually did get taken by a mountain

lion, so, oh, I'm on my A game here.

When you realize that the path that you're on, that an actual legitimate

threat against your life and the life of those you love, you take notice.

You stand up straighter, you go on high alert and you walk that path with a,

with a cute awareness, man, I gotta be on my A game, not only for me, but for the

people that depend upon me to lead them.

You know what I'm saying?

Brothers, you got people in your life who are depending on you to lead

them, to care for them to provide a covering for them spiritually.

And sometimes we're walking the path like, oh, it's just a, it is

just a walk in in Whiting Ranch.

It's a beautiful day.

I know there's mountain Lions, but hey, they're probably fine.

They don't have anything to do with us.

And we gotta be on our A game.

We gotta pay close attention.

We gotta make sure that we are not the path, we're not the hard heart

resisting to what God's doing.

We need to be more sensitive and more engaged with the word because

people depend upon us to lead them.

Your church needs you to step up your game to be spiritually aware and

sensitive, not hardhearted, not compact.

To be easily edified by the word, to be receptive, to be welcoming

of the word, to do its damage and to say, yes, Lord, please help me.

Because I need this and my people, whoever they are, my people, they need this.

And so the, the, the park ranger, when he says, Hey, mountain lion alert,

he's not saying don't walk the path.

He's saying, walk with awareness.

Be aware of what the dangers are.

And men, the dangers, when you open your Bible, when you listen

to a sermon, they're not neutral.

They're actively at war against you.

Session one's about you being aware and making sure that you know the parable.

It has two functions.

It reveals against, in fact, let me, let me, my summary.

The parable has two functions, reveals and conceals.

And then our job then is to expect the word, we're gonna

be challenged by the word.

And when God does that, he's not saying Don't come near.

He's saying Lean in.

Lean in.

Draw near push.

Don't give up.

You gotta guard your heart and come hungry.

You're gonna be exposed to the word.

The word is spread to everybody, but exposure's not the same thing as reception

is not the same thing as examining and eagerly saying, give me more of the word.

And then finally, we gotta recognize that when we hear we have an active opposition

in our, in our mutual enemy, the devil and his minions, who would love for us.

To hear the word in a walkaway unchanged, what a victory that would be for him.

You get to feel good because he went to church, and yet at the same time,

he's like, Nope, you're not doing that.

I'm taking that away.

We gotta be on our A game.

Why?

Because the condition of your heart determines the fruitfulness

of your, your response and your heart's response to the word of God.

It's so easily drifted and resistant to him.

Even as Christians, we gotta work at being soft, supple.

To the word of God this weekend, I pray that you would do exactly that.

You're gonna hear three more sermons, and again, in its span about 24 hours, it's

gonna get easier for you to check out.

Don't want you to do that.

Your pastors have been praying for you.

We think this is the right series at the right time for you.

We love you guys and we're really looking forward to exploring

these next three soils with you.

Come ready, uh, I'm gonna pray for us and then I'll give you the

instructions for the next thing.

We got dinner next, and then we're gonna come back soon

after that for our next session.

Let's pray.

God, we do ask that you would help us now to respond the right way.

Lord, it's easy for us and even for more easy, easier because we're training

ourselves to be easily distracted, to find ourselves drifting from the

most important thing in our life, which is our relationship with you.

Your word says that we're to love you with our heart, our soul, our

mind, and our strength, which is to say, to love you with everything.

And sometimes God, if we're honest, maybe even many times, we only give

you a fraction of those things.

Lord, you, you, you need to help us.

Please give us awareness of why this matters.

Give us awareness that our hearts have to be protected and guarded so that

they respond to you the way they should.

We can't take it for granted.

We can't export it to somebody else to make it their responsibility.

We have to take ownership and responsibility to draw near to you

with tender hearts, to have the kind of receptivity and the responsiveness.

That would please you Lord.

And, and to the degree that we do this, we will grow.

We will see a harvest of fruitfulness.

Lord, help us to not be path like hearts hard.

Rejecting the word that you give.

Standing over it, judging it, criticizing it, Lord, make us humble and hungry.

Men who love your word, ready to receive it.

Lord, help our hearts to be conditioned to be soft and tender

before you tender before the word.

And in that way, Lord, grow us so that we might bring you great glory.

We thank you for this.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, amen.

Next up we have dinner.

Dinner's gonna be at the building right behind.