Can I Get A Witness | Sow What? — Forrest Coleman

Can I Get A Witness | Sow What? — Forrest Coleman | Mark 4:13-20

Transcript

Forrest 0:06

Hey, I'm Pastor Forrest and welcome to the Multiply Church Podcast. Each week we open God's word and will help you meet God and multiply you in your everyday life. We're so glad that you've taken the time to join us for this week's sermon. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and follow us on social media so you never miss a message. Now, let's dive into this week's sermon. We're jumping into a new series called Can I Get a Witness? Something the Lord put on my heart in January of this year. And so I wonder if any of you have ever been like me and you've had your phone out and you've had your thumb hovering over a text message that read, Hey, you want to come to church with me this Sunday? And then instead of sending it, you think, man, is this gonna be weird that I'm asking them to come to church right now? Is it gonna be awkward? They think I'm gonna think that I'm judging them, or are they gonna actually respond or just leave me on red? It's gonna be awkward. Maybe you deleted that text. Maybe you were in a conversation with somebody and the moment got serious and they started talking about what was going on in their life, anxiety, marriage things, grief, kids' stuff, regrets, and you thought to yourself, oh, this could be the moment that I talk about Jesus. This could be the moment that I invite him to church, but you don't want to make it weird. So then you say nothing. Instead, you let fear hold you back and be silent. And so as we jump into this series, as we're walking through the book of Mark, well, this morning I want to start us off by asking the question: sow what? What are we sowing? I've been encouraged over the years of hearing stories from those in our church that have shared their faith with their coworkers on the assembly line at school with members of their families, and that boldness has led to some of the most inspiring stories that we have experienced here at Multiply. Like a grandmother being impacted by a granddaughter, or a teacher impacting another teacher in our city for God. But there's also lots of people in this room, maybe, that you want to share Jesus, you just don't know where to start. And it's not going to start with a seminary class, let me tell you. It starts with you walking through mentally and asking the questions and the exercise of, okay, what in the world would I say? What what would I say in that situation? What if somebody rejected me? What if I felt like it was gonna make things awkward? What if I invited them and they said no? And what can happen is that we can get arrested by a fear of rejection. And even times we can even dress it up in church clothes by saying, oh, well, that's just wisdom. I just need to be careful with this person. I don't want to, I don't want to push, I don't want to be too pushy. I I don't want to bring it up, I don't want to risk the relationship. But you have to ask the question, is that wisdom or is that fear? And we have to figure out, okay, what is it that we are gonna sow? How do I learn how to sow the word of God? And what is it that I'm sowing? And can I overcome the fear of rejection that keeps me sometimes in silence? Uh, a couple weeks ago, I was having a conversation with somebody that I've been praying for, and I got to sneak the gospel into the conversation as we were talking about just how you have to earn everything in life, and we're talking about jobs and work and finances, and I said, Yeah, you know, one thing though that you don't earn is you don't earn the love of God. It's something that we've received from Jesus, so you don't deserve it, you don't earn it. That's what Jesus did for us on the cross. And when I said that, this person I was meeting with, um, he didn't storm out of the conversation, thankfully. But he also didn't agree either. And what can happen is we can stay in a state of fear of rejection and not overcome that fear when it comes to us sharing what God's done in our life and what he wants to do in our through our life. And really it boils down to kind of four fears that we have when it comes to being a witness for Jesus. And we're gonna walk through these four fears over the next few weeks. The first being the fear of being rejected, which we'll talk about today. The next being the fear of not knowing enough. The third one being a fear of offending a friend or a relative, and lastly, the fear of being ridiculed or persecuted. And those fears, we can either allow those fears to stop us and silence us and keep us bound, or we can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, overcome that fear with the courage of God and the compassion of God flow out from our hearts because of our obedience to be able to give God the opportunity to use the everyday, ordinary conversations that we have for eternal fruit in your life. And there's some people that they may, they, they may never hear the gospel because the people who are closest to them won't actually cross the line to tell them what God wants to do for them and through them and has done for them on the cross. Last Sunday we were walking at the end part of Mark chapter 4, and today we're going to back up to the beginning of Mark chapter 4. In Mark chapter 3, Jesus is already being misunderstood and he's being rejected. The religious leaders are accusing Jesus of being empowered by Satan. His family thinks that he's out of his mind. Crowds are beginning to form around Jesus, but not everybody is receiving him, and some are rejecting him. And Jesus tells this parable about a sower, a seed, and soil. And Jesus goes on to explain what's actually happening in this parable. A parable is a small story with a big truth, and Jesus is using this analogy of a sower and seed and soil. And later on in the day, his disciples, who didn't understand what he was saying, they asked him to explain this parable to them. Praise God they asked, so then now we can understand it, because Jesus gives his explanation. And he's gonna teach them that just because they may be rejected, that doesn't mean that Jesus is somehow wrong. It actually proves that he's right. And so what we're gonna do is walk through Jesus' explanation of this parable, the parable of the sower, where you have a farmer who goes out into a field and he begins to spread the seed. And some of the seed falls on the footpath, and birds come and eat it, and it doesn't ever take root in the hard soil, and some of it falls on some rocky soil, and so it doesn't grow roots and ultimately gets burned up by the sun, and then some seed goes in among the thorns, and the thorns grow up and choke out the seed, and then Jesus talks about the good soil. So let's look at Jesus' explanation of this parable starting in verse 13 of Mark chapter 4. He starts off by roasting the disciples a little bit. And he said, He said to them, Do you not understand this parable? How you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown. And when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word that has been sown to them. In a similar way, these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy, and they have no firm root in themselves, they are only temporary. Then when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. And the other are the ones on whom the seed was sown among the thorns. These are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for things other, the desire for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. Verse 20. And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil. And they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. Jesus gives this explanation of this parable that he gives to a crowd, and he very simply says that the sower sows the word. There's more going on to this story, and even just that simple statement in verse 14, because the word that Jesus uses for word there is the word logos. The word logos that's attributed to Jesus in John chapter 1. I said the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is literally saying, You are serving to them, you are sowing to them, you are serving them the message of Jesus and Jesus Himself. His word, Jesus the Word. It's not just some inspiration or some positivity sprinkled in him. No, you're proclaiming the message of Jesus, who he was, what he's done for us, what he taught us, that he came, that he died, that he rose to save us so that people can repent, believe, and follow him. And so Jesus is saying that the word should be sown. Jesus himself, the good news, the good news that God made us for himself, sin separated us from him, Jesus died and rose again to rescue us, and we respond by turning from our sin and trusting in him. That's the proclamation. Very simply put, in Romans chapter 10, verse 9, the scripture says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart the person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. How many know that some people they know Jesus, but they have not accepted him in their heart? You can know a lot about Jesus, you can know a lot of the facts, you can grow up in church, you can know the stories, you can, but there's a difference between just knowing that's having the knowledge, the mental ascent of who Jesus is, and you actually giving your life to Jesus and receiving what he did for you in death, burial, and resurrection and giving your heart to him. Are you hearing me? Very simply, like growing up in Sunday school. It was very simple. A, B, C, that we should accept Jesus as our Savior and accept the fact that we are sinners, that we should believe that Jesus died, that he rose again, and that we should commit our life to him and how he's committed to us in covenant. And oftentimes we try to make it way too complicated. I know for me, at times I'm sharing, and I just think to myself, man, I I gotta have the perfect answer, I gotta have the perfect tone, I gotta say everything right, I gotta have the right explanations. And it's easy for me to try to make it more complicated when it really needs to be, when really I just need to be obedient to tell what God's done in the gospel. Maybe for you, maybe in the same way. You you feel like you you can't really go there and witness to somebody because it's like, what if they ask me a question and I don't have the answer to it? Or what if I forget some verse that I'm thinking of? Or what if I say it wrong? And what we need to see is that Jesus is telling us and calling us for us to simply sow. And what we need to do is to sow the gospel that we know the first thing we need to do, we need to sow and speak the gospel. That we speak the gospel out. Because so oftentimes we get to this point and say, well, I don't know what to say. Well, if you're a follower of Jesus, at some point you heard the gospel, you believed it, and you received it. So just tell somebody else what you know. Just tell somebody else what you heard. Listen, you don't have to know everything to sow what you know. And if the gospel is simple enough to be received by a child, then it is powerful enough and deep enough for you to speak it out to change eternity in somebody's life. So oftentimes we want to overcomplicate it. But what we need to see is that success and being a witness, success in being a witness is simply the obedience to sow it. The obedience to sow it. Because here we see the story of a sower, and there's three different soils, and three of them lead to rejection, and then Jesus goes on and tells us what's beneath that rejection. And so what we want to do now is to dive into this text and want to see what Jesus is telling us and saying to us about those who reject and what our role and responsibility is. And for us, we need to sow the gospel and speak the gospel that we know that God has what God has done in our life, and then we need to have the boldness to sow and then reject rejection. That's my second point. Reject rejection. Jesus gives us this explanation of these three soils that lead to rejection, and let's dive into them. First, he talks about the road where some reject intellectually. This isn't them rejecting you, this is spiritual resistance that's going on. There's a spiritual blindness that's happening because we have a real adversary. We have a real enemy. Paul puts it this way to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 4, 3. The good news we preach is hidden behind a veil. It is hidden only from people who are perishing. Satan, who is the God of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the good news. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. Paul explains and says, hey, the the good news, it unbelievers are blinded. They're blinded by the enemy. And so when somebody rejects the gospel, the rejection of the gospel is not about your presentation. It's about what kind of soil is in their heart. And we've got to recognize the fact that there's spiritual warfare going on. Even as I'm preaching, the times that I'm preaching, I'm getting to a close to share the gospel. There's times where there's just lies coming into my mind and trying to discourage me to speak the gospel out. And so we have to recognize the spiritual warfare that's going on, and so we need to pray. Our response is prayer. Our response is to is to be humble, to sow the gospel clearly, not get just stuck in endless arguing with people. Nobody's ever been argued into being good soil. But we have to pray that the word that is sown, that we pray that God will break up the ground. And the enemy will be stopped. The enemy hates what's being sown because he knows what it can become. He knows the change that can happen in somebody's life. And so when you think about this rejection, if the soil is hard, then our response is that we need to pray, that we need to have patience, that we need to just faithfully sow. Jesus then goes on to talk about the rocks, people who reject socially. He talks about the fact that people receive the word with joy, and then when affliction comes or persecution comes, they fall away. And these people, they are rejecting Jesus because it's costing them more than they want. The gospel is free. What Jesus did for us on the cross is free. A free gift of salvation, but Jesus tells us to count the cost of what it will be to follow Him. And so some people they hear the word and then all of a sudden they think, well, what will my family think about this? Well, what will my friends say? What will people think about me? What if I become what if I become one of those Christians that they judge judgmental to everybody? Well, this changes my relationships. You know what the irony is? The irony is that the same fear that keeps Christians from witnessing is the same fear that keeps the hearers from following. Caring about what other people think. Caring too much about what other people think. Look at what John said about this in John 12. Many people did believe in him. However, including some of the Jewish leaders, they wouldn't admit it for fear that the Pharisees would expel them from the synagogue, for they loved human praise more than the praise of God. Are we living for the praise of man or are we living for the praise of God? People who wouldn't admit it that would the soil was rocky, and what was planted then had no roots. Jesus tells us to count the cost. And there will be a cost in following Jesus, but we're also gonna reap a reward of his kingdom on this side of heaven and into eternity. The abundant, incredible life that God has for us. And oftentimes when people are rejecting Jesus, when they're rejecting him socially, it's not because Jesus doesn't sound good, it's because they don't want to count the cost. They don't want to deal with the ramifications socially, even though eternity is at stake. The third soil of rejection Jesus talks about is the people who reject practically because of riches. He says some hear the word, but then the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and desires for other things, they enter in and they they choke it out. And this is an example, people normally somebody who's not saying, like, oh I hate Jesus, don't talk to me about him. It's somebody that says, like, I'm too busy for that. I've got too much going on. Maybe when my schedule slows down. When I get my money right, then I'll do this or that. And these are the thorns that are growing up and choking out what God wants to do in people's life. With worry, money, and desire, and busyness. These are the thorns that are taking up space and taking up the root, the room of where these roots should be growing deep. Look at what Paul tells Timmy and struck and instructs Timothy about this in 1 Timothy 6. He says, But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils. And some people craving money have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows. Paul gives this instruction to Timothy, telling him that some people who are pursuing and their life becomes about getting rich will fall into temptation and even fall into traps. And I to give you a caveat here, it is it is not a sin to be rich. I hope that all of us get rich. But it is a sin for money to be the love of your life. It's a sin for money to be more important than God. And the pursuit of money that can choke out what God wants to do. You spiritually. I'm so proud of those in our church who have told their managers that they need off on Sundays. When anybody tells me that, I just celebrate the heck out of them because they are choosing to follow Jesus more than the pursuit of money. They're choosing God and to worship God. They're choosing to make the decisions that they're not going to let money dictate every choice that's in their life. And ultimately, no, because know that that's a good thing because worry is a really bad master, and money is a bad savior. And we have to make the intentional decisions around this so that we are pursuing God as our first love and don't have the love of anything else that's getting in the way. And it it can look a lot of different ways. It can look like the hours that you're working and the time that you're spending or where you are on Sundays. And this, listen to me. The pursuit of money, it looks a lot of different ways. Can I tell you that your child's scholarship is not more important than their spiritual life? Their scholarship in sports is not more important than their spiritual life. What you make optional to them now will eventually become obsolete in them later. If church is optional now, if Jesus is optional now, later in life it really wasn't that important. And so, as I'm saying that, I'm not saying that sports are bad, I'm not saying that finances are bad, I'm not saying that the work is all those things are good, but they have to be in the proper place, and we can't let thorns choke out what Jesus wants to do in us spiritually. We can't let the thorns choke out the salvation that we want to see happen in our friends and family and in our children and our grandkids. And at times when you share the gospel and there's or invite somebody to church, I invite a lot of people to church, and every so every so often somebody's actually honest and says, No, I'm not coming. I've had that happen before. Most of the time, people lie to the pastor. They're like, Oh yeah, I'll come sometime, and I'll never see him. But there's some people that just be like, no, like that's not for me. And it stings. It stings. But I have to remember that it this is not something that I've done wrong, or something that I've done, or in the the wrong approach. I have to remember that yes, the rejection it may be painful, but it's not personal. It's not personal towards me because they're not rejecting me. The rejection is the rejection of what is being sown. And what it ultimately means is this just the soil is not ready yet. The soil's not ready yet. And there's a resistance that's happening. And for us, we have to see the fact that if you, as the sower, like we don't have control over what happens once we sow the seed. The response is between them and God. We see that the fact that literally you have the same sower who's sowing out the same seed and then ends up falling on different soils, and there's different responses. And so it's this is not that, oh, that we did something wrong or we didn't present something in the right way. If you tell what Jesus has done in your life, if you tell what Jesus has done and his death, burial, and resurrection, and you tell what he's done in your life, the the success is in the obedience to sow. And don't let somebody else's hard soil make you hard-hearted, or make you cynical, or make you make you uh hopeless, or make you feel rejected, rejected. Instead, you need to reject rejection and know that the king is on the throne. And that's him and his word, and you're just walking in obedience to sow it. And then Jesus talks about this good soil, the good soil that's received in the this good ground, and somebody who hears the word and accepts it, and then it bears fruit 30, 60, 30, 60, 100fold over. Jesus talks about the the fruit that's gonna come when we walk in obedience to sow the word of God, and then that person is in the place where their heart is ready to receive it, and they are changed forever. And there's a there's a 30, 60, 100fold, there's a multiplication effect if you will step up and say, I'm gonna be a witness for Christ. If you would be faithful to share your story and what God wants to do through you, what's gonna happen is there's a guaranteed return. 30, 60, 100 fold. You may not see it next week, you may not see it next year, but in the course of our life of following Jesus, you're going to see and going to experience what God is gonna do if you would just be willing to share your story, because oftentimes your story becomes the hand that carries the seed. What did God do in your life? And I had two different people tell me this last week, these two ladies over the last two weeks that said, you know, my testimony is just so boring. Literally said that. I just wish I had more dramatic testimony. Like, don't wish more sin over your life. But literally, people are like, ah, well, you know, my story is just so boring. When the reality is that somebody desperately needs the story that God has done in their life, and if they would just sew it, they'd see 30, 60, or 100fold. Instead of downgrading and saying, oh, well, you know, I just grew up in church and all. Like, people need to hear what God has done in your life. People need to know what's happened, what the the work that's been done in your heart and the change that's happened in you, and it being a witness for Christ. And so the third thing we need to do is be faithful to sew and share your story because your story becomes a bridge for the gospel. And don't you dare say, my story's not enough. Don't insult God by saying that. He bought you with a price, and he loves you, and he pursued you, and he sowed his word into your heart, and now you be faithful to sharing to sow your story in the seed that God has placed in your heart. Your story is what somebody else that you may already know actually needs to hear and make a difference in their life. Um the success is in the obedience to so. A few years ago, I was in Corbin, Kentucky with a friend. We were at a restaurant, and we were sitting there, we just minding our own business, and this older rotund man came up to us with his buddy, and he had this wild look in his eye, and he kind of sounded like Colonel Sanders. We were in Corbin, the birthplace of KFC, sounded like foghorn, leghorn. I say, I say, I say, and he came up and he said, Boys, have you been washed by the blood of the lamb? And I'm not necessarily recommending that evangelism strategy for you today. At the Applebee's after church, you go up to a stranger and hit him with the foghorn, leghorn, altar call. But what I can't get away from is the fact that I still remember it. I don't know this man's name, I don't know where he came from. I don't know if he ever had any kind of training about sharing space. I have no idea. I I I don't know all that. All I know is this he sowed a seed, and now years later, I'm talking about in a sermon. And sometimes we're so afraid that it's gonna be awkward that we'd let the enemy keep us silent. And so for you, what I want us to do is I want us to be brave. I want us to be brave. I want us to be brave to share our story. And I want to help us do this by way of there should be a graphic that comes on the screen with a QR code. And I want everybody to pull out your phone right now. I know you don't do that in church. Pull out your phone. I want you to scan this, and what it is, it's this is an anonymous form for you to fill out your story, your testimony. And why I want you to do this is because I want one for us to be able to be encouraged by anonymous stories in our church about what God did in their life and how God changed you, but also to give you the opportunity to actually write out what God has done in your life and for then you to see that story and be able to then say it to somebody else. Is it working? It's working. I want you to fill this out, and I uh I want for us to be able to celebrate some of the stories that are happening in our church, and next week is Father's Day. I want to celebrate some stories of dads and what God's done in their life. Could you just imagine? Imagine with me if this room was just filled with people who weren't afraid to sow the seed of salvation and of God's word outside these walls. What could happen in our city? What could happen in our church? And we've seen God work over and over again. But I just I wonder if if everybody in this room said, you know what, I'm not gonna be bound by the fear of rejection. Instead, Jesus already promised that that's gonna happen, and what I need to do is just be obedient to sow. I need to be obedient to share. But you're gonna say, you know what, yeah, I am gonna share with that coworker. Could you imagine if we had a church that was full of sowers? And I'm not saying that you need to be weird, you need to be pushy or any of that. I'm just saying just be faithful. Be faithful. Be willing to tell people what Jesus did in your life and the salvation that you've received. So when you feel the fear of rejection, just reject it. So, you know what, I'm gonna share my story. It may be awkward, but like what could God do with it? I know there's times for me where I'll be out and about, and maybe I get a nudge from the Holy Spirit to talk to somebody, invite them to church to pray for them. And I know there's times, even for me, when I'm like, man, you know, this is just this is not the time, it's gonna be awkward. Makes me wonder what 30, 60, 100fold that I missed. I didn't listen. What what what was it that I uh I missed out on? And now God's gotta give that assignment to somebody else. What can God do? What can he do? Imagine what he could do. Maybe for some of you in the room, maybe your step right now is you just need to receive the seed that's been sown by the Father. You need to receive the seed of Christ and what He done has done for you on the cross, and that today needs to be your day to receive Jesus as your Savior. You need to move from just a head knowledge to for you to actually accept Jesus in your heart, to confess Him with your lips and believe so that you can be saved. So you can give your life to Jesus and so that you can be sealed and saved now into eternity. And you need to give your life to Jesus today. Maybe somebody's in that space. Maybe for you, you need the Lord to help you to overcome a fear that's of rejection or whatever fear is holding you back from seeing what God wants to do in your life. Will you stand with me right now as I pray over everybody? Father, right now, I pray over every home that's represented right now, God. I pray every person right now who is a follower of you, who's a Christian, God, who you have saved them. And Lord, some that you've saved in in this very room. So, Father, we thank you, God, for what you're doing in and through the stories in our church. And God, right now, I pray for boldness and bravery over those in our house. That God, that they would be ones that would follow after you, that would love you, that God would be willing to share with others. And if you if you're in the room right now, you're a believer in Jesus, you want God to help you be bold. There's somebody in your life that you know you need to sew your story into. Would you just raise your hand up right now? I can pray for you. Yeah, right here, right here, all over the room. Right now, I pray right now over believers in the house right now that know, God, that you want them to share what you've done in their life with those around you. Father, right now, I pray for boldness in the name of Jesus. Over every single person, Father, that Lord is asking you to move in their life in this way. God, we pray, God, courage over them, Lord, that you would, Father, implant in them the obedience to sow the story of salvation that you have done in their life. If you can put your hands down, if you're in a room today and you've not received Jesus as your Savior, today's your day to receive Christ. I want you to pray in your heart and mind genuinely, Jesus, save me. I believe that you died on the cross for my sin, that you walked out of the grave, that you're the Son of God. Forgive me, cleanse me. I repent of my sin and turn to you. Thank you for saving me. I give you my life and commit my life to you now and to eternity. Thank you for saving me.

Sallie 36:29

We're so grateful you joined us for this week's message. At Multiply, we believe life was never meant to be lived alone. If today you made the decision to follow Jesus, we'd be honored to walk with you on this journey. Visit multiplyky.com to let us know. We love you and we'll see you again soon.