Discover Jesus Series Pt. 12 - Pastor Greg Addison - March 2, 2025

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you, Jacob, and choir and congregation.

It's great to sing the name of Jesus.

It's great to speak the name of Jesus.

It's great to preach the name of Jesus.

And that's what we've been doing in this study.

Discover Jesus as we've been walking from Christmas time and we're walking towards Easter and working through this process to really hone in on the truth of who Jesus is.

It's just fascinating.

Every time I turn around, I see a new commercial, I see a new show, there's a new way that people are talking about Jesus and trying to discover who Jesus is.

And so it's a great time for us to speak into that because it's an open time.

They tell statisticians who study culture and church life and all of that.

They tell us it's an interesting time right now.

Bible sales are peaking.

People are responding to this discussion around cultural things are creating opportunities for people to search.

They tell us that spirituality and asking spiritual questions is on the rise.

And so it is a great opportunity for us to really speak into these fundamental truths about who Jesus is.

And so what we're going to talk about today is another topic that a lot of times has some misunderstanding about it.

Last week we talked about miracles and the purpose and the process of how Jesus did them and all of that.

Today we're going to talk about another topic.

We're going to talk about parables.

Parables.

And so if you've been in church any number of times, there are certain parables that you have heard of or know about.

You know about the parable of the Good Samaritan.

You may know about the parable of the mustard seed.

You may know about the parable of the talents.

You may know about the parable of the sower.

And so what we a lot of times think is people will just, in a shorthand version, say something like, Oh, parables are great.

Jesus taught parables and told stories.

It's an easy way to make it simple.

Well, there's a whole lot more to a parable than that.

They may be simple in their structure, but they are not simple in their truth.

And so parables are incredible.

We're going to talk about the purpose of parables and see how that Jesus used them to reveal the heart of the listener.

They were a way for us to look into the miracle of spirit, the mirror of spiritual truths, and reveal who we are, what we understand, and what we believe.

I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 13.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

We'll have the text of that on the screen.

Where we are right now in the life and ministry of Jesus is we're approaching the third year of ministry.

As you know, Jesus started preaching and doing his ministry around the age of 30, we understand.

And then he spent about three years in ministry, going out and preaching and healing and doing all the things that he did to help people understand who the Messiah is in him and place their faith in him and to prepare them for that moment when he would go to the cross, die on our sins, that he would be raised again, conquering death and sin, and establishing the fulfillment of the gospel, God's provision for salvation.

Here is a fundamental point in this ministry life of Jesus as we are moving from the end of that second year to the beginning of that final year, that third year, and there is a change, a subtle change that begins to occur, and we see it right here.

This story that we're about to look at is told in three of the four Gospels.

Matthew here, Mark and Luke record this parable.

They record this same setting, and in two of the Gospels, Mark and Matthew, you're going to see the significance that Jesus explains about the use of parables.

Read with me here, Matthew chapter 13, verse 1.

Matthew 13:1

On that day.

Now that's a key phrase.

We're talking about the same day, unfolding of facts, so you would have to go back and read some in Matthew chapter 12 to get the whole event and context of what's happening.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

But let's start right here.

On that same day, Jesus went out of the house where he had been, and then he went and was sitting by the sea.

Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down while the crowd stood on the shore.

Now I've been there in that area and I've seen how this works.

What happens is the water there, it makes a natural sort of a bowl experience.

And what would happen is the people would sit on the banks and they're a little bit banked like that, and then Jesus would go out into the water, and so as the hillside kind of went up from the banks of the lake, people were sitting there and they could see Jesus, and it forms kind of a natural amphitheater.

So that's the setting of that.

Then he told them many things in parables.

And then it describes one of them, saying, Consider the sower who went out to sow.

As he was sowing, some fee seed fell along the path, and the birds came and ate them up.

Other seeds fell on rocky ground where there wasn't much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since the soil wasn't deep.

But when the sun came up, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered.

Others fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them.

Still others fell on good ground and produced a crop.

Some one hundred, some sixty, some thirty times what was sown.

In other words, you sow those seeds, and on the fertile ground, when it comes up, it bears a great harvest.

It multiplies.

The law of sowing and reaping in Scripture that Jesus often pointed out, you reap what you sow, the kinds of seeds that you sow, you reap more than you sow.

That's what you see here, and you reap later than you sow, as it takes time for that crop to go.

But one of those three principles, when God bears fruit, he bears fruit dramatically.

And so this soil bears incredible fruit.

And then Jesus said this anyone who has ears should listen.

Now we begin to get a clue.

Verse 10 the disciples came up to him and asked, Why do you speak to them in parables?

Remember the beginning it says that he began to teach the crowd in parables.

And they asked him, Why are you doing this?

Why are you using parables?

They had heard Jesus preach countless times.

For years now they'd heard Jesus preach.

They were there in the Sermon on the Mount when he gives this incredible theological discourse.

They are there and they've heard him use illustrations.

They've heard him unpack the scriptures.

A few weeks ago, we talked about how when Jesus taught in one place, they said he taught the scriptures with the authority of an author, as if he had that kind of authority and power in them.

So they had heard Jesus preach in all kinds of different ways and different sermon methodologies, and now he begins to use these parables, and it's enough of a change that they ask him, Why are you doing that?

What's going on with this parable business?

And verse eleven he explains, Because the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given for you to know, but it has not been given to them.

For whoever has more will be given to him, and he will have more than enough.

But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.

For this reason I speak to them in parables, because they do not see, because looking they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand.

Isaiah's prophecy is filled in them, which says, You will listen and listen, yet never understand, and you will look and look, yet never perceive.

For this people's heart has grown callous.

Their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes, and otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn back, and I would cure them.

But your eyes are blessed because you do see, and your ears because they do hear.

For I assure you, many prophets and righteous people long to see the things that you see.

In other words, prophets from the Old Testament who had prophesied about the coming of the Messiah and Jesus and all of that, they longed for the day when the Messiah would come, and he says, You're here, you get to see the Messiah.

Many prophets and righteous people long to see the things you see, yet didn't see them, to hear the things you hear yet didn't hear them.

You then listen to the parable of the sower.

When any one hears the word about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.

This is the one sown along the path or the hard ground.

And the one sown on rocky ground, this is one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but is short-lived.

When pressure or persecution comes because of the word, immediately he stumbles.

Now the one sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the worries of this age and the seduction of wealth choke out the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

But the one sown on the good ground, this is the one who hears and understands the word, who does bear fruit and yields some one hundred, some sixty, some thirty times that what was sown.

Now, you're there, just stay there in verse 23.

I'm going to read to you verse 34.

Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables.

And he would not speak anything to them without a parable, so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled.

I will open my mouth in parables, I will declare things kept secret from the foundation of the world.

And so there you have a parable, and it's a famous parable.

Uh and if you've been in church any amount of time, you may have heard it, but a lot of times what we don't talk about was what parables are and how it works and why this moves on.

So let me give you just some thoughts about parables.

Scholars tell us that there's between 35 and 40 parables recorded in the Gospels.

Depends on, you know, if it's how large it is, if you call it a parable or an illustration or whatever, but somewhere in that frame.

And what the Bible tells us is here, Jesus goes into a very clear shift and he moves into utilizing parables in a very consistent way.

So let's talk about a minute, a minute, about what a parable is.

I grew up hearing this shorthand definition.

You may have heard this.

It's an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.

How many of you heard that before?

We talked about miracles last week.

G.

Campbell Morgan, who is a famous preacher and evangelist from yesteryear, said that, let me see if I can get this right.

Every miracle is a parable of instruction, and every parable is a miracle of instruction.

What does it mean, parable?

The word parable comes from a Greek word, it's a compound word, and it literally means to lay alongside.

And so what happens when Jesus uses a parable is he is taking an earthly story and he is laying it right alongside a spiritual truth to help us understand the spiritual truth.

Here's a shorthand definition that I've kind of put together from different things that I've been studying that help us understand what a parable is.

It is a simple story that communicates a spiritual lesson by using an earthly word picture to highlight a specific spiritual lesson.

There is only generally one theme and one lesson in a parable.

Now, as Jesus says, He uses this parable as a mirror and it reveals the heart of the listener.

Are you listening?

Are you paying attention?

Here's what Jesus says.

It draws open the listener.

It draws an open listener closer to the truths of the Lord.

He says here, uh in verse 11, because the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given for you to know, but it has not been given for them.

And then he goes on to say in verse 13, for this reason I speak to them in parables, because looking they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand.

Verse 16, your eyes are blessed because you do see, and your ears because they do hear.

So what happens is this parable works like a spiritual mirror, and someone who is coming and is open to hear what Jesus says, they're seeking Jesus and not the show.

They're seeking Jesus and not the miracle.

They're coming with an open mind to hear what he says rather than projecting their own impression on him.

It draws them closer.

This structure of this story and its relatability and a theme that is so clearly given in how Jesus masterfully pulls these stories together.

It draws them to him.

But also the person who came and they don't want to listen and they don't care, they're against Jesus like Pharisees, or they've just come for the show, do this, and I'm going to move on, or whatever, it confuses them.

It doesn't make sense to them.

Why are you telling me this story about this farmer?

I just want to get my leg healed, or I wanted to get my, you know, child to be able to see again or whatever.

And so what Jesus is saying is listen, when I tell these stories, it begins to work like a mirror that helps people figure out where is my heart and why am I listening?

Let me give you some helps in understanding a parable, because there's a lot of parables, and you'll hear all kinds of things about them.

Parables should not be difficult to understand, and many of them, Jesus, like this one, gives us the explanation which teaches us how to understand them.

First of all, is this it is a simple, straightforward story with one lesson.

That's what a parable is.

It doesn't have all kinds of layers to it and all that kind of stuff.

Jesus is trying to clarify one central truth, and a parable, whether it is long or it's short, will drive into one issue.

A lot of times, Jesus tells a parable in response to a question.

And so the theme of that parable is the answer to the question.

Ones like this, he is making a point and teaching a spiritual truth.

It is not an allegory.

What is an allegory?

Well, pilgrim's progress would be an allegory.

It is an overarching story that has all kinds of layers.

It is crafted in such a way that all the components and elements of the story all have layers or something spiritual with it.

To give you another version of that, Lion the Witch in the Wardrobe is an allegory.

Our family, we raised them on that.

I mentioned that before.

We love the Chronicles of Narnia.

We had another discussion this week in our family tech stream about it.

Somebody had been reading it and we're talking through it.

And it is a rich, it's a much richer story.

It's designed to tell all the layers of that.

If you think through the line, The Witch in the Wardrobe, you're getting all of these layers of what sin is and how we're sinned as you watch Edmund be tempted.

You see the white witch and evil and the flow, and you learn about Aslan and who he is, and you have this complex picture.

We talked a few weeks ago about who he is, and you have this fierceness, and you have this regal and royalty to him, and at the same time, he has this gentleness and this concern and this love, and all the layers of that story all have meaning into it.

That's not what a parable is.

A parable is a simple, clear story with one theme and one purpose.

For example, in this story, when Jesus unpacks it for them and explains to them what it's about, you'll note he doesn't say anything about the sower.

There's no description of the sower.

Doesn't matter who the sower is.

Anybody that's sharing Jesus is a sower.

It's not really important who the sower is.

It doesn't have anything to do with it.

There's no discussion of the seed or its nature or whatever, other than this is the word of God.

That's enough.

Everything you know about the word of God is all you need to know for that.

It's very specifically, this is the word.

It doesn't go into weather, it doesn't go into the nature of the farm, it doesn't go into, you know, the acreage of the farm.

It doesn't go into uh the weather and all these different, it doesn't go into any of that.

It's not overcomplicated.

Jesus is making a point and he is sharing a specific truth.

And so it's different than an allegory.

So you can't go in and start reading all these things and pulling all these things and all this kind of stuff.

It is only understood within the context in which it was told.

And so it's very important because what Jesus is doing, either he's making a point that he is on purpose directing to, like this one, or he's answering a question, like with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

And so outside the context of that, it doesn't make sense.

He will tell a number of stories that involved farmers and sowers and all that.

In fact, if you continue to read in verse in chapter 13, there are multiple agrarian parables that he tells here.

There's one in verse 24 through verse 30 that he talks about more sowing and seeds that grow up in a field and all of that, but it's different than this one.

The seed means something different than it means in this parable.

The weeds are something different than it is in this one.

And so he's telling a different story with a different truth.

You can only understand that parable within the context in which it was told.

And then understand that Jesus extensively uses these in that final year of his ministry as he is shifting.

He has been dealing with people who only come for the show.

He's been dealing with people who do not understand who he is and why he came.

There are people who think he came to overthrow Rome.

There are people who think maybe a part of that, but they think because of the prophecies of David, and he came through the lineage of King David, that he's here to re-establish Israel as a world power and lead them to prominence and wealth and all of that stuff again.

There's all these different things that people don't understand.

And so Jesus is trying to make sure that he is clarifying exactly who he is and exactly why he came.

Remember, as we've looked at through this, Jesus' sole concern with everyone that he deals with is their faith journey towards accepting him as their Savior.

And so he begins to use these parables to reflect a mirror and to begin to help people understand what's happening.

So let's talk about this parable then and unpack this a little bit because the message is incredibly important, especially as we talk about discovering who Jesus really is, who, as Scripture explains him as the Messiah, it's important to understand that there is one central truth in the parable of the sower.

The condition of the listener's heart determines whether the seed takes root.

Let me ask you a question.

What's on your mind as you came to church today?

How did you approach coming into church today?

Did you come out of habit?

Well, that's a good thing.

That's a commitment, that's consistency, that's good.

But when you come into your Sunday school class where your teacher is teaching the word, or you come into church, are you preparing your heart to listen to what Jesus has to say?

Do you come in with a paradigm of what church looks like and what church is and how people should sing and how she should dress and how they should act and how they should whatever?

And you come in and you're only comfortable if your paradigm of church is how you want it to be.

Or did you come in, Lord, speak to me today?

I'm here to listen.

Remember, Jesus ends that parable very clearly.

Verse 9 anyone who has ears should listen.

He is challenging the crowds to begin to move past.

Miracles and paradigms and everything else, and you need to listen to what God is trying to say to you.

Pastor where I grew up grew up used to say all the time.

Do you doubt, but you come wanting to understand?

Or do you doubt just going, ah, it's not true?

I don't really care.

Oh, that can't true.

Oh, that preacher can't prove that to me.

That guy's just doing that for money.

He's just raising money.

He's just whatever.

He can't get a real job, so he's just being a pastor or whatever.

I don't believe that scripture.

I don't believe that truth.

I don't believe all that kind of stuff.

Did you bring all of that in, or did you bring in an ear to hear?

Did you come in wanting to know, can you speak to me through your word?

How did you come?

Here's the context of the parable of the sower.

If you back up to Matthew 12, which I mentioned a minute ago, this all takes place in one particular day.

And what you get in chapter 12 is Jesus has been teaching, and the Pharisees are really amping up their animosity towards Jesus.

They are amping up their attacks by now.

They are beginning to plan that they've got to do something with Jesus and they've got to deal with him because he is creating problems.

And you have a series of events where Jesus steps in.

On one time, they're walking through a field, and these guys are hungry, and we're on the Sabbath, and they just kind of run their hands across the top of the grain field and they mash some of that up and they eat it like sunflower seeds, just kind of snacking along the way.

And the Pharisees are looking for anything they can attack Jesus with.

Aha!

You dirty, rotten, heretical, terrible example of a Jew.

You just plowed a field and harvested on the Sabbath.

You worked on the Sabbath, the Ten Commandments say you have to rest on the Sabbath, you're wrong.

Just from that.

Like, what kind of stupid attack is that, really?

I mean, that wasn't even a good attack in that day, if you understand all the stuff, but just sort of track with me here.

Jesus deals with that attack.

Then he's in another place, and they bring him a man whose hand is all withered.

It's been that way since he was born.

And Jesus heals him.

And it happens to be on the Sabbath.

And they go, aha! We knew you hated the Sabbath.

We knew you were a heretic.

You are blasphemous.

And they're attacking Jesus.

And he begins to talk to them and he says, Listen, you don't understand what this is about.

You don't understand what the Sabbath is about.

You don't understand the heart of God.

Why would you withhold healing to someone that's not what that's about?

And then they bring him a person who is demon-possessed and he's blind and he's deaf and his life has been that way.

Can you imagine the horror of that?

And his family living through that.

And Jesus heals him and forgives his sins, and they just lose their minds.

They can't believe you keep doing this on the Sabbath and they lose their minds.

And Jesus rebukes them.

And he says, Listen, not only are you wrong, but you are committing a sin that is unpardonable.

And sometimes we hear that phrase, the unpardonable sin.

Sometimes people will come to me and they'll say, Pastor, I'm afraid my sins can't be forgiven.

Listen, there is no sin that Jesus would not forgive you of.

It does not matter what your life has been, it does not matter how you've messed up.

Jesus loved you and he died on the cross for every one of your sins.

If you will come to Jesus Christ and if you will repent of your sin and ask him to forgive you, he will always forgive you.

That's the point of what he's trying to do and what he's trying to say and why he came.

And when he looks at these guys and he tells them, this is a black, the real blasphemous is not me healing this man on the Sabbath.

It is you because you have defamed the work of God and you have rejected him completely in your heart.

That is the sin that God cannot forgive.

Not because he doesn't want to, but because you have refused and rejected the grace of God.

You have refused and rejected what God has offered you in salvation.

And Jesus then, in this moment, as he begins to teach, he says, okay, we have got to shift this model.

Because we have crowds that are coming just for the healing.

You have the Pharisees who have rejected it and they're confusing people, and you got all this going on, and what I'm going to do is now I'm going to take shape my teaching to where I'm going to use parables to create a mirror so that people have to deal with what matters most in their hearts.

How are you listening?

How are you listening?

The Pharisees had rejected Jesus at that point.

They are beginning to plot his death and demise and all of that.

They are opposing him in every way.

They have already stepped away from God.

They have thumbed their nose at God.

They have demeaned his work and his acts.

They have blasphemed his son.

And it is not the actions in themselves, but it is the matter of the heart that they have turned off their hearts and minds, and they have rejected God forever.

Forever.

And so Jesus steps in and he says, now we're gonna we're gonna tell a story.

I'm gonna use a parable and I'm gonna hold it up as a mirror and I'm gonna have you deal with the question, are you listening?

Do you want to understand?

Do you want to hear from God?

And so he comes and he tells this story in a very clear and simple way with no misunderstanding if you have an ear to hear and an eye to see.

Here's the word of God, it is scattered to everyone.

And there are just a few types of responses of the human heart.

That's the parable of soil.

Let me just give you some truths here that relate to this.

Go to the next screen.

The lesson is this it is which soil are you?

So he gives these types of soil and he explains them in incredibly simple, clear understanding, and it makes perfect sense with our human experience.

Verse 18, when anyone hears the word about the kingdom of God and doesn't understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.

This is the one sown along the path.

In other words, this ground is so walked on, it has become so hard, it's like concrete.

And the word of God lands on it, and it has no way to penetrate.

It has no way to get through.

I remember when I was a kid growing up in Memphis, we had a uh our driveway was all caddy wampus, and you couldn't really put a basketball goal or whatever.

And I'm from Memphis, and every house is a basketball goal.

Everybody plays basketball.

We all play basketball.

And so I'm playing basketball.

So we had a shed in the backyard, and that's where we put the goal up.

So dad put the goal up on there.

And it didn't take very long out there playing basketball before we turned that part of the yard into concrete just by playing basketball on it.

Y'all with me?

If you spread later, my dad came along when we were growing up and playing in gyms and doing other stuff, and he tried to spread some Bermuda seed on that.

Bermuda grows anywhere.

After a nuclear apocalypse, the only three things that will last are mosquitoes, cockroaches, and Bermuda grass.

Isn't that true?

But even Bermuda, he spread it on that hard, packed-in dirt.

I mean, it didn't do anything because it can't get in.

And he says, listen, when your heart is hard and you're not listening, here's what's going to happen.

Satan is going to come in and he's just going to take away the opportunities for you to hear the word of God.

He's going to give you distractions, he's going to take you somewhere else.

He's going to continue to whisper in your ear that that's not true, and he's going to take it away.

There is an enemy to the gospel.

There is an enemy to your heart that does not want you to trust Christ as your Savior.

Make no mistake about it.

There is an evil spiritual enemy, the devil.

He is not something to make fun of.

He is not something to dress up as.

He is not something to play with.

He is your mortal, eternal enemy.

And he wants you to die and spend an eternity with him in hell.

That's who Satan is.

But the question is, Satan can't keep you from there.

All Satan can do is respond to our responses.

And if you have closed yourself off to the gospel like the Far most of the Pharisees did, you've just made it easy for him to pull the gospel out of your life.

The next group Jesus describes is very simple to understand.

He says verse 20, the one sown on rocky ground.

This is one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself because it is short-lived.

When pressure or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately stumbles.

Been in church any amount of time, you get this.

Man, it's cool to be in church.

Church people are nice.

Well, most of them are.

And it's a great place to be, and it's loving, it's encouraging, exciting.

People tell you about hope.

You get to sing.

Man, one more rescued from hell, and this is what Jesus did, and he's awesome, and you get in the emotion of that, and it's all great, and you respond to that, and life is good because it's a cool place to be, and people love on you, and they tell you, you know, we love you, and we're glad you're here, and all that.

You get encouraged, you go anywhere else, and you're getting just ragged out in life, and you come here and it's all good, and everything is good, and your heart's all excited, and this is fun, and I got all energy in this, and then you get to okay, life was hard.

There must not have been an answer to that.

I'm gonna go somewhere else.

Or you come to this point where you're all excited, and all, and then all of a sudden you hear a message where you have to repent of some sin and pull that away, back from that, and you've got to create change in your life.

Or you go back to work and you're telling everybody how awesome it is because you've discovered this thing and this is all cool and people are happy there, and we're singing, we're doing all that, and then somebody starts chewing on you about it.

And because it hasn't been able to dig in and develop roots, it's just emotion.

Nothing wrong with emotion, but again, Pastor Roger Grubb uses say all the time, God doesn't do his deepest work in the shallowest part of your life.

There's more to it than just the party and the yay, and we're excited, and we're all that.

These are people who came for the healings and all of that, and then life got hard and they just disappeared.

And so the question is do you have more than just this is fun?

It's a blessing, it's an encouragement.

Because if you don't get encouraged, you're just gonna leave.

If there's something that's a little more pressure on you about you've got to make this change in your life, this is how a Christian lives, this is what's going on.

Jesus is telling this story to help people understand I do not have roots and I am not digging in.

And when I pull back, it's revealing to me where my heart is.

Am I really open and responding?

There's another group that he describes.

The one who sowed, now the one sown among thorns, this is a part of the field where there is fertile ground and it's so fertile anything will grow there.

And so he casts the seed and the fruit grows, but other things are growing as well.

The one sown among the thorns, this is one who hears the word.

But the worries of this age, and listen to this, and the seduction of wealth choke the word and becomes unfruitful.

This is particularly appropriate to understand in our American culture.

You can go to other places like Elvo Salvador, where our team went, or Guatemala or Nicaragua or Argentina or wherever like that.

They don't have some of this.

Their problems are some other things.

But listen, they come and they come to church, rain or shine.

They don't need air conditioning.

At one of my churches where I was, we were having sound issues and problems, and we sent a team down to Guatemala, and they go to this church and it's built-in block and it doesn't have air conditioning, and they were having sound problems.

So they just over a matter of a year or two, everyone collected their egg cartons.

Now you couldn't do that today because an egg carton is worth, you know, a mint because every egg is worth$25, right?

But you know, it used to be we'd throw those away and we'd cut them up and make stuff for our G.I.

Joe's when we were kids and all this other kind of stuff.

So they took these and they just tacked all these on the wall and created acoustical sound doing.

And so one of the guys came back from the mission trip and he said, Pastor, why do we have to do that?

Why can't we just be like them?

Well, we're just not.

I agree with you, but we're not.

It takes more work than that.

It takes other things.

Why?

Because we have so many things that fly around us in our culture.

We have so many opportunities, we have so many things that draw us, we have so many voices that the gospel comes in and it takes root, and we understand and we're willing to put our lives into that direction to a point.

But then I get to the point where my wife's car keeps breaking down, and I've got to buy her a new one because I'm a good husband, and I don't want to put her in a thing that's unsafe, and so I go, and when I buy that car, I don't go to Carvana or Carmax, I go to the dealer, and then I keep moving up every time they give me another sales pitch.

And the weeds have choked out.

I can't go to London, Pastor.

I can't go to El Salvador because I can't afford it.

I drove in this morning.

Please understand my illustration.

I drove in this morning, I drove in Old Greenwood, and because I drive the speed limit on Old Greenwood, it's really slow, and I see y'all past me all the time on the way to church.

I can see the ball fields full of families at 8 30.

The sun came out a week and a half ago.

Nothing wrong with playing ball.

My kids play ball.

I've share those stories.

I love it.

I miss coaching my kids.

I miss all that.

But listen, those are thorns that choke out the spiritual development of your family if you are not committed in a way that you do not let that choke out the fruit.

I mean, we live in a culture where all this stuff is pulling us.

It's unbelievable.

Man, you get on Instagram, and I'm just trying to get basketball highlights, watching the Vols knock off number one yesterday.

And I mean, if Janet and I had a conversation yesterday about a certain product, I'm looking for basketball highlights, and every other thing that comes up on social media is what we just talked about.

Is that not freaky to y'all?

I mean, we live in that culture, y'all, and it's going to impact all of us.

And what Jesus is saying is, listen, when you live in that culture, are you listening?

When he teaches you about commitment, when he teaches you about saying no, when he teaches you about pursuing him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, when he asks you, are you willing to give up everything to place your trust in him?

Are you listening?

How's the condition of your heart?

Are the things of life choking out your spiritual fruit?

In the middle of this, chapter 12 and chapter 13, in the middle of this, verse 46 of chapter 12.

He's speaking to these crowds, he's in the middle of all this teaching, he's just rebuked the Pharisees, he's about to tell everyone else, how's your heart?

I'm going to tell this story about the sower, and I want to find out if you're listening to me or not.

His disciples come to him and say, Hey, your mama is outside and wants to talk to you.

Now, listen, I'm terrified of my mama.

I mean, she's only that tall, but I'm telling you, she is all kinds of South Mississippi tough.

All right?

I mean, whenever my mom speaks, we do that, right?

I mean, my dad was all tough and he thought he was all that.

I could battle him.

My mom, like I just surrender right away, right?

Your mama wants to talk to you, you listen.

They say, listen, Jesus, your mama wants to talk to you.

And he says in verse 49 of chapter 12, here are my mother and my brothers.

For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, that person is my mother and sister and brother.

Jesus is challenging them.

Are you going to follow me?

They've tried to challenge him on the commandments, and he said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And the second one is just like it.

Don't tell me how much you love God, and you don't love the people around you.

Where is that?

Where is that?

And he's challenging us.

Are you listening or are you letting the weeds choke out your life?

Or are you like the person whose heart is open because you're listening?

And he says, in that fertile ground, the one sown on the good ground, this is the one who hears and understands the word, who bears fruit and it yields.

Some 100, some 60, some 30 times what was sown.

The word of God in our lives, as it builds our faith, as it teaches us to be like Jesus, as it shapes our minds and hearts, as it affects our decisions, as it strengthens our faith, as it causes us to see Jesus and to follow him that closely, the word of God bears fruit in a supernatural way that nothing else in life will ever do.

That is the promise of Jesus in the Word of God.

Then why don't we see revival?

Why isn't everyone a soul winner?

Why aren't we baptizing every week?

Why aren't all these things happening?

Because Jesus is trying to say, look.

Are you listening?

Are you listening?

It's a very simple story.

But man, it is all kinds of profound.

The proof is in the fruit.

That's what Jesus says.

Pastor, how do I know?

I mean, I feel like I'm listening.

I want to grow.

I feel like how do you know?

Well, how's your fruit?

How's your fruit?

That's the question.

How's your fruit?

Because if you're not listening, you're not going to bear fruit.

And if you're listening, you will bear fruit.

Jesus said in John 14, and John 15, he makes this promise as he's talking about heaven and life and everything else.

In John 15, he uses another illustration.

And he says, Listen, I'm the vine, you're the branches.

If you're in me, you will bear much fruit.

There's no question.

It's not about what you're doing.

If you are listening and you surrender your life to Jesus, it is him and his supernatural power through us.

It is Jesus who bears fruit in us.

It is the word of God which builds our faith and draws us to him and teaches us all of that.

So are you listening and responding in obedience and allowing God to bear fruit?

If you are bearing fruit, then you are walking with him and your heart is open and keep going.

Keep growing.

Growing.

But listen to the warning of Jesus.

What he says in this parable, after explaining why he's teaching it, he says this.

The secrets of the kingdom of God of heaven have been given for you to know, but it has not been given to them.

For whoever has more will be given to him, and he will have more than enough, but whoever does not have even what he has will be taken away.

What he means is listen, if you've rejected him, if you're not paying attention, if you've closed off your heart, you're going to go backwards, not forwards.

You have limited the first step.

If Jesus is here and you're walking to him, and in your mind you begin to turn away from him and you begin to try to do something else, and you begin to allow the thorns of culture and all that to choke that out, and you start to walk away from him, what's happening is you are now limiting the number of things that God can talk to you about.

Because he's got to call you back home.

He's now got to convict you of this sin, not lead you to this, and not lead you to that, and not use you for that.

He loves you and he's worried about you, and so he's going to hone down his message to a message of calling you to repentance.

So those things have left you, and that broader how you can grow and all that other stuff, and he's just calling you to return and calling you to repent.

And if you keep going and you keep walking away and you've rejected him, like the Pharisees did, you can't hear him.

And you can't hear it.

When Jesus is calling us, he is sowing the seed everywhere.

He's not withholding the seed from the stony ground or the path that's hard or anything else.

It is being cast everywhere.

The question is, are you listening?

I want you to think about this.

How is your time in studying the word?

Do you go to the word of God every day?

Do you sit down with the word of God and you ask questions and let it speak to your heart?

Do you avoid your quiet time because you know in your mind, in your heart, that God has something He's trying to deal with you about and you don't want to deal with it?

And so you pull back.

By taking heed according to your word.

Are you listening to the word of God?

Are you responding to the word of God?

If you are, there's fruit.

If your fruit is increasing, keep going.

If your fruit is decreasing, or if there's none in your life and you need to be saved, Jesus is saying, listen.

We're going to end with a time of invitation.

The invitation is for everyone.

It's a chance for all of us to leave here different than we were when we came in.

If you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, listen, I'm going to ask you to listen.

Set aside your preconceived notions.

Set aside what you might be angry or frustrated about.

If you have doubts, bring them to Jesus and give them to Him.

Don't just cling to them or hold on to them.

If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, Jesus came and He died on the cross to pay the price for your sin.

He rose again to offer you salvation and forgiveness and an eternity.

We've sung about that.

We've said that.

I've spoken that.

We've read the red words where Jesus is calling out to trust him and promises to bear fruit in your life if you'll listen.

The question is, are you listening?

If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I'm going to invite you to come.

We have pastors here.

We'll answer your questions.

If it takes a while, that's fine with us.

We'll go back in a meeting.

We'll answer as long as you want.

We'll set other meetings.

We'll walk with you.

But listen, if you're going to listen, listen.

And don't be like where you've got this rocky ground and it can't grow.

It's more than emotions.

Listen, listen to Jesus and come to him.

If you're already saved, I'm just going to encourage you, where are you?

What is this parable that Jesus spoke as a mirror?

What is it saying to you?

Respond today, whatever it is.

Lord, we love you and we thank you for Jesus and just how incredibly powerful and clear and understanding of who we are.

He was when he taught.

And I thank you for this parable and how it speaks to all of us.

Give us the freedom now to respond.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Let's stand and sing.

If you need Jesus, you come.

If you want us to pray with you, you come.

We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.