How's Your Reception?

How many of you remember putting tin foil on an antenna? Remember that? Some of you don't know at all what I'm talking about. I know, I know. How many of you ever used a paper clip or a wire coat hanger and you just plugged it into the back of the TV to see if you could get it?

Did you do that? See if you get reception? How many of you? You were the remote. Kevin, go turn the channel right. UHF or VHF. Turn up the Volume. You get up and you're the remote control. Today it's about, "How's my wireless download signal?" But used to, we had to really pay attention and the signal was coming in, but we had to fine tune the antenna so that we could get a good picture.

And I think it's a lot like that in our heart and in our life as well, that we have to have hearts and lives that are are attuned to receive from God. Because how many of you know God loves to talk to his people? He does. God loves to speak to his people. The Bible says this.

In fact, I'll show you a couple of places. Hebrews 1 says, God, after he spoke, he loved to talk to his people long ago, through the prophets and in many ways. But in the last days, he's spoken to us through His Son. Jesus said, my sheep know my voice. They know my voice and they follow after me.

Second Timothy says the Bible, all scripture is, is God breathed. That's why we call this the Word of God. We believe that God speaks to us. In fact, Hebrews 4 says it's living and active. He didn't just speak it when it was written, but he's still speaking to us through his word.

Here, Jesus in John 16 said, the Holy Spirit's gonna come and he's gonna speak to you. He's gonna remind you of all the things that I said to you. John 14 says, he's gonna guide you. He's gonna teach you all things.

That's what the Holy Spirit, God loves to speak to his people. He's always done so in the Old Testament. Job told us there's a problem, though. He says, indeed, God speaks, yet no one even notices it. So there's a problem that our God loves to speak to us.

But a lot of times we may not be in tune with his voice. And today I want to talk to you about having hearts that are attuned to God. Because He is speaking. We just might be missing the message that he has for us. So grab your Bible, turn to Luke chapter eight this morning.

We're picking up where we left off last week in Luke 7. Last week, Jesus was in the home of Simon the Pharisee. He couldn't hear Jesus. He couldn't see who Jesus was. He didn't have a heart that was tuned to Jesus.

He was tuned to some other things. There was a woman who had been known as a sinful woman, but she received from God his grace and his forgiveness. And she was the forgiven woman. And we saw the expression of that in her life. And today we get to Luke chapter eight, and it starts with, there's three women who received, like that one woman at the end of chapter seven from the Lord.

And it came out in their life and the way they participated in Jesus ministry. We're in verse four, and the word "hear" is going to be nine times seen in this passage. There's a lot of hearing, but there's also a kind of hearing that is not really hearing is what the text shows us, that there's a way for us to hear what God has to say, but not really receive His Word in a way that we delight in the blessings of His Word in our life. So look at verse four, chapter eight. It says, "When a large crowd was coming together, those from various cities, they were all journeying to Jesus, and he spoke to them by way of a parable."

The Gospels show us. Luke shows us that where Jesus went, thousands and thousands of people were traveling after him, following him, listening to him, trying to get a word from Jesus. So much so that at times, it felt like the crowds were in the way of what Jesus was doing. Remember, Jesus was in the home of a person teaching. And the crowds were so, so full and so thick that the door, you couldn't get through the door to see Jesus. And so the guys tore the roof off to lower a paralytic man down through the roof just so that he could see and hear and experience Jesus for himself. Jesus, in one moment, we talk about how he's teaching and he's healing and the disciples are there, and there's so many people around them that they couldn't even stop to take a break and take a meal. Jesus did the miracle where he fed 5,000, remember? At least he multiplied by the miracle of his hand and his power.

And he fed 5,000. A little later, he feeds 4,000 people. But you get to the end of the Gospel of Luke, and guess what? It's just a few women and a few men who are anywhere near Jesus. And you gotta wonder, like, "Where did all the people go?"

There are thousands and thousands everywhere Jesus went. But at the end of the Gospel of Luke, there's just a few men and a few women. And you wonder, why did they desert him? And I think this parable is going to give us some insight into that. Here's the parable, verse five, he's teaching in parable.

In a short story that has a deeper spiritual meaning. It says, "The sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell beside the road, and it was trampled underfoot, and all the birds of the air ate it up. Other seed fell on the rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away because it had no moisture. Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it out. And other seed still fell into the good soil, and it grew up and it produced a crop that was a hundred times as great."

And he says, and as he said these things, he would call out to people, he who has ears, let him hear. Couple of uses of the word hear. He let those who have ears hear with them. He's not just preaching to people who physically have ears. That would be silly.

He's saying, you have ears. Make sure you're listening to me so that you can actually hear with them. He said something similar to the disciples. I told you this a couple of weeks ago, right after one of the feeding miracles. They watched, they witnessed, they saw Jesus take very little and multiply and feed thousands.

And then a moment later, they're in a boat with Jesus and they get upset because they forgot to bring any food with them. And Jesus goes, you just saw me feed thousands of people by my power, and now you're consumed with worry because you forgot your meal. You saw with your eyes, but you didn't have eyes that really saw me. And here it's, you have ears and you're hearing the words that are coming out of my mouth, but you're not really receiving them. So in verse nine, he says, the disciples begin to question him.

And they say, okay, what does the parable mean? In other places they go, why are you talking in parables? Why don't you just tell it straightforward? What should we know and what should we do? In verse 10, Jesus said, "To you disciples, it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. But to the rest, it's in parables." Listen to this. "So that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand." Sounds kind of mean a little bit. He goes, I'm talking in parables so that in seeing they won't see and hearing. They won't understand.

But there's something tucked in there for us that the disciples might have picked up on quickly. Jesus was actually quoting Isaiah from Isaiah, chapter 6. Remember, Isaiah was a prophet of God. And a prophet does what? He speaks his own words or God's words, right?

That's the job of the prophet. I'm here to speak God's words to the people that they might know him and live in him and walk with him. And so in Isaiah, chapter 6, God is speaking to Isaiah. He calls out, whom shall I send and who will go for me? And Isaiah says, here am I.

You heard this, "Send me." And so God gives him his first assignment. Isaiah, chapter 6, verse 9. And God said to Isaiah, you go and tell this people. So tell them, keep on listening, but don't perceive. Keep on looking, but don't understand. You see that. That they would have ears but not hear. That they would have eyes but not see. And the disciples go, why are you teaching in parables?

Just tell people the information what they should do. And Jesus said, if I just told them the information and what they should do, they would only see as the natural man sees, and they would only hear as the natural man hears. They would perceive with the mind and not with the heart. I'm speaking in parables so that what they understand is something that can only be understood because God has helped them. Remember Matthew 16, when Jesus was talking to the disciples and asked them, "Who do people say that I am?"

Remember that. Who do people say that I am? And they said, "Well, we've heard people talking. And some people say that you're John the Baptist. Come back. And other people say, you're Elijah. Come back. You come back like that, reincarnate." And he goes, "Okay, well, who do you say that I am?" Peter says, "Well, you're the Christ. You're the sent one of God." And Jesus congratulates and celebrates him. But he does so by saying, "I'm so pleased that you said this. Not because you figured it out on your own, but because you received it from your heavenly father." See how that applies here?

I don't want people to just understand intellectually the things that I'm saying. I want people to have a heart posture that's ready to receive, that is open and willing and surrendered to receive from God, that they wouldn't just hear the words, but they would be transformed by them. And the emphasis here is on the responsibility of every person to have a heart that's attuned to receive the message that God has for them. So he brings the disciples in a little closer. He goes, "I'm going to tell you what the parable means so that you can tell others."

And essentially, there's four types of hearts here. And he's looking at the crowds that have followed them. There's four types of hearts in the crowds that are following me. And frankly, there's four kinds of hearts today. And even in this room, there's four kinds of hearts probably sitting in this room at this very moment.

Four kinds of hearts, four soils in this parable. But only one of those kinds of hearts is really attuned to receive from God and experience the fruit of God's word, His word at work in their life. So he explains the meaning of the parable, and this is the meaning. Verse 11. He says, first, understand when I talk about sowing seed, the seed in this parable is the word of God.

It's the voice of God. They didn't have the Bible. The New Testament wasn't written, the canon wasn't complete yet. This was the voice of God speaking to them through the prophets, through the Old Testament. And as the Holy Spirit was speaking, speaking through Jesus and through his disciples in this moment, it's the voice of God.

But even today, as we have our scriptures and the Holy Spirit is speaking, please understand, the voice of God never contradicts what is in the written scriptures. It's always in alignment with the Scriptures. And you go, why? Because God doesn't contradict himself. And we already said 2 Timothy says, this is God breathed.

So if God breathed this, why would he say something here? But then when you go to your prayer closet and go, should I do this or not do this? Why would God say something there that contradicts something here? God wouldn't do that. And sometimes we need to tell ourselves that when we're going, God told me to do this thing.

And you go, but that's not in the Bible. That's not really what God is like. It's not what he wants. Why would he tell you that if this is what he's already said? Sometimes we need to tell our favorite Christian influencers, the thing that you're saying right now is not in alignment with God's word.

It's not God's voice that you're hearing right now and that you're sharing with me right now. Whenever God speaks to you in these days, it's always going to be in alignment with his written word, because this is God breathes, verse 11, the seed, God's Word. Those beside the road who have heard it, the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart so that they will not believe and be saved. This is the first type of heart. It is the hard heart, the first condition.

It's those who have a hard heart. I don't mean people who are mean and lacking compassion and hard hearted towards others. I mean here a person who could even have spiritual interest, but they're generally unresponsive to God's Word and to his will and his purpose being worked out in their life. It could be somebody who sits in these rows every Sunday, who opens their Bible and listens to podcasts. It could be someone who's very interested spiritually, but that they, that they hear never seem to transform or change anything inside of their life.

The picture here is a dirt road and there's a guy out scattering seed and some of it falls on a road and it's called hard soil. Because man has decided that this plot of earth is going to be a road and people will walk on it. And it has been trampled on and packed down. It is hard and tight. Man has controlled and, and tamed this part of the earth and said, this is what this will be.

And the picture here of a hardhearted person is a person who has, in their own control, said, this is who I will be. This is how I will be. And I have determined this is what I will let in and will not let into my life. Judas is a prime example of this. How many of you know that you can be physically present but spiritually absent?

You know that you can even do that when you're in the presence of God, when you're hearing the word of God, Judas, he could be physically present, but soulfully absent. He could be intellectually present, but spiritually absent. Judas went everywhere Jesus went. He listened to Jesus. He heard his words.

He heard this parable, explained to him. He saw what Jesus did. He had eyes. He saw. He even participated in the ministry that Jesus was doing.

He looked in every way like a disciple. But Judas wasn't soulfully and spiritually present because we see in the end, he did not experience the blessing of God's Word at work in his life, and he did not experience salvation. He thought he was holding onto something, but it was taken away from him because he was hard hearted. What makes our hearts hard? Sin, simply, it's sin.

And sin looks like a lot of different things, but at the root, it's always the same. Sin is, is when we make choices that are contrary to the Will, the Word and the way of God in our life, that's sin. It's when we make choices. Anything that is contrary, that is apart from that, is against God's will, His Word and His way. It looks like a lot, thousands, looks like a million things in our life.

But at the root, it's always this. I am in control of my life. At the root of it, it's always that I will decide for me which way I will go. I will decide what I will let in and what I won't let in my life. That is the heart.

It's the root behind every sin. It's control. And if that's the way that I am, I am in control of what will go in and what go out. I will decide if this will affect me or not affect me. The seed will end up falling on a hard heart and I may feel like I've got it.

It's landed on me. I sat in the service, I did the Bible study. I went to Precepts, I checked the box, I went to BSF. I have all exposure to Scripture in the world. But if I am still in control on how I will let that Word affect me, I have a hard heart.

And God's Word, which is always good and always powerful, will not be good or powerful to me. It will just sit on the surface of my heart. And don't miss this. This is weird for us at times, but Jesus says it very clearly. He says, there's an enemy of our heart, there's an enemy of our soul.

Jesus gives him a name. He calls him the devil. And he says the devil is looking to take the promises of God and take the word of God and the grace and truth of God's Word away from us to where it won't bless us and it won't sink in. Peter talked about him like a prowling lion, the devil who's looking for someone to devour. Jesus said he comes to steal from us, to kill and destroy us.

There is an enemy who wants the seed of God's Word just to land on the surface of your life and not sink deep and not take root and not be watered and not grow up. And he wants to statue away and steal from you every blessing that God desires for you to experience in your life. So Hebrews says this in Hebrews 3, as the Holy Spirit says today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion during the time of testing in the wilderness. If you hear God's voice, don't harden your hearts. Can I tell you this?

If control is your thing, then a hard heart is going to be a struggle for you. If you are used to controlling all of the conditions, and all of us have that to some degree. I've talked to you for over a decade about my issues with dealing with being a recovering control freak. If control is your thing, then you're controlling what gets in and what gets out. Even when it comes to the word of God, you're going to struggle with a hard heart.

That's the first type of soil. First type of heart. Here. The second is in verse 13. It says, "Those on rocky soil are those who, when they hear, they receive the word with joy. And these have no firm root. They believe for a while, but in a time of temptation, they fall away." Heart condition number two is the shallow heart. Somebody say shallow heart.

Make sure you're still awake. Again, not shallow people, but shallow soil. And the imagery in this whole parable is looking at Palestinian farming practices where seed would be sown October through December, and there would be a guy with a sling, a bag, and he's got seed in it, and he's walking along, spreading it. And some of it falls on this road, this path, and it's not going to get anywhere. It's going to get blown away by the wind and taken by the birds.

Some of it lands in dirt that looks good, but in the hill country, there is a beautiful topsoil, but you get down below the surface and you find a limestone bed underneath. You ever had that when you were gardening at home? Our first house in Midlothian. We bought that house. I immediately was going to start planting crepe myrtles in the back.

And it looked great. When I first dug, it was like, good dirt. And I got about a foot down and it was just solid rock. A lot of times I've thought about this passage, I was thinking there's just, like, rocks sitting on the surface. And it was like, well, I mean, I'm not sure that I totally understand the metaphor here, but if you look at Palestine and the sowing, that was happening. Beautiful topsoil seed hits, plant can grow, and weeds can grow really tall in a foot of topsoil. But because there is a rock base down under the surface of the ground, those roots cannot go deep. They cannot draw deeply from the nutrients they need to grow.

And so when the weather comes, when the heat comes, when the wind comes, when the storms come, whatever has grown up hasn't rooted, and it is going to get destroyed or damaged in a way and doesn't have the life flowing to it that can sustain it and allow it to heal. That's the story of a lot of my gardening at home. You know, it wasn't prepped well to deal and endure and persevere with what life would bring. I'd call it being kind of lazy in the spiritual garden of our soul is what's happening here. Because I didn't do the work of going and pulling up the rocks, and I didn't till up the ground and take out the weeds and put in some fertilizer and water the dirt.

I didn't have a soil that was able to absorb the seed and root deeply, that could endure and persever through the storms of life. And here it's interesting, verse 13, it says, on rocky soil, there are those who, when they hear the Word, they receive the word with joy. So these could be Christians who come in. They receive the word of God, they receive salvation, they're delighting in the Lord, they're excited, they love to sing to God, they love to go to Bible study, they love to learn a new thing. They love to be active in the body and with with believers doing things.

But because they're not rooted deeply, the identity in Christ hasn't sunk deeply in who they are. They haven't really absorbed it deeply. So they have no firm root and they believe for a while. But in a time of temptation, when they're struggling, when there are trials, when they're prone to live contrary to the will, word and way of God in their life, they will says fall away. And in context here, fall away means that they will fall away from the word of God that had been implanted in them.

So those truths that God has placed in my life, they don't sustain me through the trials because I haven't allowed them to grow deeply and grow up in my life in a profound way. When I go through tough days, they're not there securing me. That's why Psalmist said in Psalm 119, I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. I've stored it up deeply that I might not fall away from you. In the time of temptation and trial in my life, have I been careless with the garden of my soul?

If carelessness is your thing, then a shallow or a shallow heart's going to be your struggle. If we're not tending to the garden of our soul, we're going to struggle with having deep roots that sustain us and help us to persevere in the times of. Of difficulty in our life. That's the second type of soil in the parable. Here's the third type.

It's in verse 14. The seed which fell among the thorns. These are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way, they're choked out with worries, choked out with riches, and choked out with pleasures of this life. And so they bring no fruit to maturity. We'll call this condition the distracted heart.

It could be the crowded heart, the cluttered heart. We're call it the distracted heart because it's fair to say every one of us are dealing with crowded lives and a lot of distractions, the tyranny of the urgent, the affairs of every day, whether it be the things happening in our own bank accounts and our work and our community, or if it's stuff happening in our country or things happening in the world. It's so easy to get caught up and entangled and all of these things. And for some of us, the unsettled feelings that we have about that, especially where and when we live, I feel like it drives us towards busyness. Busyness is what we find to be the solution for our unsettledness.

But what if our unsettledness really is because we can't hear the voice of God because we're so busy and we've done it to ourselves? I don't feel right. So I got busy to try to make up for it. But now my I don't feel right is really because I haven't heard from the word of God. And I've gotten so busy that I'll never hear the word of God.

It's choking out the fruit of what he wants to do in my life. I was thinking about this week how familiar certain voices are to us. You hear a voice and you recognize it in a second. Like some of our favorite actors. If you heard, I'm not.

It's a bad impression. But if you heard, all right, all right, all right. You would go, McConaughey. You hear Morgan Freeman speak. You know him.

In a second, James Earl Jones. In a second, you hear a Michael Jackson song. Come on. It's like, I know exactly who it is.

But would it be the same way with the Lord. If he was speaking, would we go, I know that voice. I'd know that voice anywhere. That's the voice of my savior. Jesus said, my sheep, they know my voice.

They follow me. Told you a couple weeks ago about man camp. First rule of man camp, never talk about man camp. Right. I told you though about bonfires, I'll tell you one more thing.

At risk of getting out at man camp, another thing we do is we take all our hunting rifles and we put out steel and we try to hone in and become great marksmen. But one of the things you have to have is you have to have ear protection. Some of you use ear protection. So they have a noise canceling feature. Mine, they're battery operated on the side.

I dial this up and when I do that, two things happen. It allows me to hear the voices of those people who are near me, that I need to hear my friends with me. But it mutes all of the loud bangs and crashes that are going on all around us. Does that make sense? Noise canceling feature protects my ears and preserves my ability to speak with my friends and to hear their voice.

Some of us need to find the noise canceling feature in our lives that we could mute some of the chaos and noise going on around us so we could more clearly hear the voice of God when He's near to us. He wants to speak to you and he wants you to hear Him. Some of us need that more. I've got more toys on stage than I've ever had before. Some of us need to hear his voice in our life.

Listen to Hebrews 12. It says, "Therefore, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding at us, listen to this. Let us lay aside every encumbrance or hindrance and the sin which so easily entangles us." Listen to this. Everything that hinders us and every sin.

There's two things. It's not one thing, it's two things. There are sinful things that entangle us. We should throw them aside. And there are things that are not necessarily sinful things, but they are getting in the way of our ability to hear from God.

They're hidden, hindering us. It's not about heaven and hell. It's about helping or hurting. And if it is hurting my ability to hear from God, Hebrews says we should throw it away from us so that we can run with endurance the race that is set before us. Reminds me of Colossians 2.

It says, "Therefore, as you've received Christ Jesus, so walk in Him. As you've received the message of Christ, so walk by the message of Christ, walk in him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in him and established in your faith just as you were instructed and overflowing with gratitude." In other words, God is speaking to us all the time. He's speaking to us in His Word. He's speaking to us by his Spirit.

As I listen and seek to stay in tune and stay in step with the Spirit, he's helping me to know what it is that Jesus wants for my life and reminding me of what Jesus has shown me about the way of life. He's reminding me of how to live a life where I'm blessing the Lord and blessing others no matter what I'm facing in life, that I can still do that. He's guiding me in the way that I should go. And Jesus says, if I allow so many things to crowd and to distract me from hearing the voice of God, it's going to choke out the mature fruit that could grow up in my life. It's not going to allow me to grow.

Some of us are going, how come I'm not growing spiritually? It's because something is choking out the fruit. And Hebrews says, we've got to throw it away. We've got to cast it off from us, lay it aside. And if for you, concerns are your thing, then a distracted heart is going to be your struggle.

You see, there's options here. Some of us, it's all of the above, right? But there's options here and here. If distracted, if just all the things I'm concerned about this, I'm concerned about that. I want to know, how am I going to make it through this?

Do I have enough for that? What's happening over there? What's happening over here? I want to memorize this. And you're going to have a distracted heart.

You're not going to hear the voice of God, and the fruit of God will be choked out in your life. And here's the last soil, the last hearts. In verse 15, it says the seed in the good soil. These are the ones who have heard the Word in. Listen to this.

An honest and good heart. And hold it fast. And they bear fruit with somebody say it. Perseverance. We're going to call this the surrendered heart.

The surrendered heart. Now, it didn't say a perfect heart, did it? Look at verse 15. Didn't say a perfect heart. It said an honest and a good heart.

It has an honest desire to hear from God, an honest desire to receive from him and to rest in his word. Not to hear it and just memorize it, not to hear it and say, mmm, Amen. Good word, Lord. Good word. But an honest desire to receive, to retain, and to be changed by God's word.

Jesus is that kind of person, will persevere through trials no matter what comes at you. In life, you don't give up. You don't stop short. God will bear fruit. He'll bear spiritual fruit in your life.

When you bury the good news in the fertile soil of someone's heart, it awakens them to something new. It's like the woman we looked at last week, the woman who was known for her sin and lost in it. But when she received the word of forgiveness, it changed everything. It awoke in her a new heart and a new spirit. Every honest heart surrendered to God's word, his will, and his spirit bears fruit.

Jesus said, abide in me and I abide in you, and you will bear much fruit. Yeah, you know that it's the last thought. If surrender to God is your thing, then a fruitful heart will be your reward. You see that if surrender to God is your thing, when you wake up in the morning, you go, lord, I just surrender to you. I surrender.

Oh, if that's your thing, a fruitful heart will be your reward. Now what's the fruit? Well, it looks different and different amounts, but the Bible says that the fruit can be the fruit of the spirit, like Galatians 5. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. You want to look more like that.

You got to have an honest desire to receive the word of God. You have to have an open heart that is willing and surrendering to God and inviting the Holy Spirit spirit to bear that fruit in your life. Romans says the fruit of a surrendered heart can be winning others to the Lord, sharing the gospel and they receive. Says that a generous life comes from a surrendered heart. It says the ability to forgive someone you struggle with unforgiveness.

The ability to forgive comes from a surrendered heart. White hot worship comes from comes from a surrendered heart because the word of God, when it's received the word of God's powerful. God spoke and made everything powerful. Jesus talks about another place. God's word, like a little acorn, such a small thing, but when it grows, it creates this massive tree, can break through everything.

God's word received in a surrendered heart is powerful and he can do much. What I want you to notice is it's the same seed through every one of the examples he gives. It's the same seed, it's the same sower, same seed. The only difference is the type of soil the seed lands on. That's the different thing.

It wasn't that one got a good seed and one got a bad seed. It wasn't that one person got a good sower and the other person got Stuck with Kevin. Sowing, right? No, it's God, the Holy Spirit, who is sowing the word of God. It's consistently good and powerful.

The difference is, what kind of soil is it landing on? And so I want to end with two questions. Question one is, which soil are you most of the time? Not which soil are you today, March 16, but when you look at your life up until now spiritually, what type of soil are you generally? Are you the hard soil?

Are you the shallow soil or distracted soil? Are you the good and honest soil? Because if you hear the word of God and you feel like it's not working in your life, you probably need to look at the soil it's landing on. Okay, which soil are you most of the time? Second question, I think is really important for us as well.

Even if I got to the place where I said I think I'm mostly the good and honest soil, mostly most of the time. What are the conditions around the times when you move from that place to being hard soil or a shallow soil? What happens in your life to where you. You quit tending to the garden or you begin listening to all of the other voices? What kind of soil are you typically God speaking?

He's speaking to every one of you. You got a Bible? Say I got a Bible. You're a Christian. You got the Holy Spirit dwelling within you.

God's speaking. He loves to speak to his people. Are you getting the message? Depends on the soil. Can I pray for you?

God, we thank you for your word and Jesus, we thank you that you spoke in parables. That it wouldn't just be a matter of intellect and memorizing verses and defending doctrine that would make us alive. That it would be a matter of being open and willing and surrendered to you. That it would awaken a new heart in us. And we thank you for a parable that is easy to understand if we'll listen, if we have ears to hear, but at the same time, because maybe it's familiar or maybe because you've explained it, I pray that we would not dismiss it quickly, that we would not become unintentionally shallow of heart or distracted in heart.

But we would take seriously this parable, and we would honestly face it not as a crushing thing, but as an invitation to experience the. The fruit of your word alive in our life. We want to hear from you, Lord.

Parents in the room. If they've got kids, God, we need your voice. We don't know what we're doing. Students in the room. My goodness, I could not imagine growing up in times so complex and changing so quickly, how confusing it is.

They need to hear your voice. And every one of us, we're looking at the world and we're making decisions every day. God, we need your voice.

So I pray as your church, as your called out people, chosen ones, as those who have found life in Christ, Holy Spirit, would you awaken in us a desire and a hunger to know and live by the word of God.

May we be rooted and built up and endure and persevere and bear the beautiful fruit of the Spirit. In Jesus name, amen.