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So last week I'm at my house and I hear from the other room one of my children who will remain nameless so that they don't have to you know get your guilty stare there's your stairs right and they'll feel guilty but one of my children I hear them screaming from the other room Oh dad get in here hurry hurry hurry get in here it's bad it's really bad come on get in here and I get into the room and it's um I said what's going on what's going on you know kind of what what's what's happening and uh they're like uh my sibling is not listening to me you ever had those moments parents and I'm like and yeah they're not listening to me they're not doing what I'm asking them to do I need your help this is an emergency and I'm like that's not an emergency uh and so we begin to have this conversation about that and then I begin to as every wise father does I begin to tell a story and I be and I and I digress into the boy who cries wolf right and I start saying now listen there's this this story about this little boy and he's out in the in the pasture and and he's watching sheep and and he starts yelling to the townspeople that this wolf is coming to get him and they come out and there's no wolf and then all the people go back and they're like okay and then he does it again and then he gets it again and then finally a wolf really does come and then the people don't come because they hear him crying wolf and there's no there they don't think there's a wolf because he's already said it several times before and there wasn't one and so the wolf eats him and all the sheep. And I'm you know trying to get my my kids to get to tears right and then I'm like do you understand? They're like no you know and I'm like don't cry wolf if it's not an emergency don't tell me it's an emergency I run in here think it's an emergency next time you say that I may not come as fast you know point being this is that we use stories all the time don't we to drive drive home points uh we we use them to teach lessons to our kids and some of the stories that maybe you you grew up hearing things like tortoise in the hair uh you guys remember that that story probably really well um Aesop's Fables um which kind of give me bad dreams I don't know there's some weird stories in there if you've ever read Aesop's Fables uh the three little pigs uh that's an interesting I'm sinking down here I'm like wow I'm going down okay uh the three little pigs you know and you got the first two pigs that do their good due diligence and they build the right kind of house and then the the third one builds it out of straw and then the wolf blows it down right you you talk about when to be uh do due diligence and do it right um you got the the little red letter little red riding hood I'm not real sure what that's teaching us um I haven't quite figured that one out uh but we like the story okay we tell the story I'm sure some of y'all could could tell me what that means later on um and then you know just stories that we've heard in your life over the course of your your your life that stick with you and you come back to and and you remember as a as a pastor as a teacher it's funny um we're kind of told that when people walk out of the room from an environment like this they only remember about five percent of what they actually heard. That's really encouraging you know it's like you spend your week like prepping to teach and then they're gonna get 5% of it right uh so I always pray you know Holy Spirit God help help the things that need to stick stick because they're only going to remember 5% right so just remember Jesus okay just remember Jesus that's that's the main thing okay leave with Jesus um but I was reminded even this week from one of our elders that people uh as they are engaging decision making process that stories help them. In fact one of our elders uh this week said that uh as they are trained in cells that they talk to them about telling stories and engaging people in story because it initiates something in the left hemisphere and right hemisphere of the brain and that that's how you really help people come to the place where they'll make a decision. They'll cross the line of commitment. I thought that was very intriguing. I've not read any of the research on that but apparently that's part of the the the tactic of learning how to sell something to someone is telling stories. But stories have power don't they? Stories have ability to illuminate a truth that maybe is obscure to us. And this morning I want us to look at what I believe or who I believe is the greatest storyteller ever to walk the earth. His name is Jesus. Jesus was the greatest storyteller. He had this ability to tell these amazing stories we call parables in order to illuminate truth. And we're gonna look at um one of those particular parables called the parable the soils or a parable the sower depending on which way you look at it and we're gonna talk about that a little bit and make some applications but um I want us to go ahead and read the text together from Mark chapter chapter four. We'll start in verse one and we're just gonna read the first twelve verses to get get going. Here's what it says Again he began to teach by the sea and a very large crowd gathered around him so he got into a boat on the sea and he sat down and while the whole crowd was on the shore facing the sea he taught many of the things in parables and in his teaching he said to them Listen, consider the sower who went out to sow and as he sowed this occurred. Some seed fell along the path and the birds came and ate it up other seeds fell on the rocky ground where it didn't have much soil and it sprang up right away since it didn't have deep soil. Then the sun came up and it scorched and since it didn't have a root it withered. Other seed fell among the thorns and the thorns came up and choked it and didn't produce a crop. Still others fell on good ground and produced a crop that increased thirty, sixty a hundred times what was sown. And then he said Any one who has ears to hear should listen. When Jesus was alone with the twelve those who were around him asked about the parables and he answered them The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you but to those outside everything comes in parables so that they may look and look and yet not perceive that they may listen and listen yet not understand. Otherwise they may turn back and be forgiven so we think about these parables I want to kind of give a little bit of background here that a parable as I said a while ago is really a story. It's a story. In fact it comes from the I the word parabolo means the casting alongside a kernel of truth in order to amplify that truth and to bring us to a point of decision with what we're gonna do with that. Okay? So Jesus during his day he was not the only one who told stories. He was not the only teacher that used parables. But he was the only teacher that used parables these stories to actually talk about himself to illuminate who he was okay and we're gonna talk about that as we dive into the parable in a minute. About a third of all Jesus says if you have a Bible that has your words in red for the words of Jesus about a third of that is parables okay about a third of what Jesus said 35 parables are recorded in the Gospels. And these parables in essence put the cookies on the bottom shelf. They let us have access to these truths that are that are really lofty in some ways but they put it down where we can access it, where we can understand it, where we can embrace these these truths. Jesus was masterful at this because he used stories that really were vivid pictures that had these symbolic things included in them and we're going to talk about some of the symbols in one of those parables in a minute as well. And he if he was in an urban setting if he was in a city he would tell parables about city type things so he would talk about lending and banking. If he was in the rural area if he was out in the country uh then he would tell stories about farming and about uh about things that would happen in a rural context so Jesus understood his audience and he would use these stories to connect with people where they were and he served humanity in this in this way he served us he served people by giving us these stories and as I said a while ago we all understand that stories really do have power they clarify the message they hold our attention sometimes we're hanging on the word if you know a good storyteller you just love to sit there. I remember my grandfather being a great storyteller and I would just sit and listen to him and I would just wait what is he going to say next and what what's gonna happen in the story? What twist, what turn, what's gonna happen. With my kids periodically we'll we'll step away from reading something together and I'll just tell them a story and it's so funny I'll start telling them the story and then I'll just kind of stop randomly and they're like wait wait wait you can't stop there you know you got to tell us more because that's the power of story. Story draws us in but Jesus ultimately used his parables his stories he used them to both reveal his identity but he also used it to conceal his identity he used it to reveal his identity to those who would receive him and he used it to conceal it from those who would not receive him who would reject him now why is that so important? Why was that such a big deal? Because when Jesus was on the scene he had real enemies and the Romans who were in charge at that time they were calling all the shots Caesar was over all the things he was actually considered godlike that if they heard that this man was teaching that he was the Son of God and that he was the king that had come the Messiah if he taught that they would have instantly imprisoned him right and they would have killed him because he was in opposition to Caesar. So in some ways he can use these parables to tell these truths about who he was and the kind of kingdom that he was bringing to conceal who he was but also it wasn't just the kings who he concealed his identity from it was actually the common people. At times common people would uh they were looking and I'm talking about Jewish common people they were looking for a messiah they were looking for a king to come and if he had told them straightforward I am the Messiah I am the king the common people would have rioted because the kind of kingdom that he was bringing in was not the kind of kingdom that they were looking for. It was not the one that they were hoping for. Are you with me? They were hoping for something that was going to be political in nature it was going to bring some power it was going to get rid of the Romans and their rule and their oppressive uh the oppressive things that they were doing towards them. So Jesus used these things these parables these stories to reveal and to conceal his identity until the time was right because even through the gospels we see Jesus saying a number of times don't tell anybody who I am don't go and go don't go and speak this to the authorities. Don't go let people know that you believe that I'm the Son of God keep that to yourself. Now they didn't and that's what ultimately Jesus got killed because he was in opposition to everything that these Jewish religious leaders were holding on to which is their power their influence and their way of thinking about God and the Bible the the scripture that they had which wasn't the full Bible we have but the Torah the the Old Testament law so it helps us to understand that as we get into this parable today. The parable of the soil or the sowers the sower is one that is in all three of the synoptic gospels so Matthew Mark and Luke and if you've ever seen a Bible or that you can actually go and buy it at the bookstore. They have a Bible that will put the three gospels side by side and you look this is one of the only parables that's in all three of those gospels Matthew Mark and Luke which are the first three books in the New Testament of our Bible okay and this pure this parable it really sets the table for all the other parables that Jesus is going to tell in fact Mark chapter 4 verse 13 so the verse after where we stopped while ago he says this he said to them Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any of the parables? So Jesus is actually setting the table for all the other stories he's gonna tell in the future and he's trying to teach his disciples listen, listen listen these are important pieces of the story these are important components and they're gonna repeat themselves over the course of my teaching and ministry. In fact one of the reasons why we believe this parable was repeated three times is because Jesus probably taught this in every setting he went to different locations whether it was urban or whether it was rural as he traveled around he would repeat this parable over and over and over again and so it stuck with the disciples they remembered it. It was very memorable so the other thing about this parable is that this was kind of kindergarten level okay we're talking like this was a foundational parable it was at the baseline it was at the it was at the bottom okay it's a very establishing kind of what these parables were all about. There were some symbols that were in the parable that I wanted to talk about for just a minute and that way we can understand as we read through Jesus's explanation of the parable what these particular things are. Because as I said these are going to show us what Jesus is teaching about later on in his ministry. The first one is the sower this one seems probably pretty obvious to you who's the sower in the story who we're a little bit nervous right we're like I don't want to be wrong don't be that voice wrong Jesus okay Jesus is the is the sower he's the farmer who's out sowing the seed okay that's that's a pretty obvious one like I said when you look at this he's saying I am the sower my teaching okay that's the second component is the seed. What is the the the seed that's being sown the gospel the good news in Mark 1 we read this the first week in our study of Mark it says this after John this verse 14 after John was arrested Jesus went to Galilee preaching the good news of God the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the good news so the seed that he's sowing is the the seed of the kingdom's news the good news that Jesus is here that he's brought in a new kingdom a new way okay uh the third component that we see is we see the idea of soil it's just this idea of soil and that's the the hearts of people the heart uh with which they receive the truth and that's really where this parable goes and really focuses in on is what type of soil are we or the listener. What type of soil is the listener? And in case you needed to know just what is the definition for heart because we obviously don't mean the physical heart beating in our chest right what is heart it's where your convictions it's where your beliefs it's where your values really lie. It's the essence of what you really think and believe. It's not just your intellect but what's going on at the in the internal level of you okay at the deepest level of who you are what's in your heart and so the soil is is that heart level it's that conviction belief value motivation spot in your life okay and the final thing we see component wise our symbol is the idea of fruit that there is fruit and this is just saying what happens when the seed does get received and then it's blessed by God's Spirit and it it comes and it grows up into something. It grows up into some fruit okay so let's talk about the parable and look at some takeaways and I think what's most helpful is because this is one of the parables where Jesus actually took the time to explain it. So verse 14 he says this the sower sows the word and these are the ones along the path where the word is sown when they hear immediately Satan comes and he takes away the word sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground when they hear the word immediately they receive it with joy but they have no root in themselves and they are short lived. When pressure or persecution comes because of the word they immediately stumble. Others are sown among thorns these are the ones who hear the word but the worries of this age the seduction of wealth and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word and it becomes unfruitful but the ones sown on the good ground are those who hear the word, welcome it and produce a crop thirty, sixty and a hundred times what was sown. So the first thing that we could observe from this parable is that Jesus is out sowing seed. What he did during his three years of ministry is he sowed seed. He taught he taught people in fact says in the scripture earlier in Mark that he taught as with one with authority. When people heard Jesus talk they were like wow this guy is some kind of teacher not just because he was so gifted but he had authority when he taught people listened in he was anointed you might say the Holy Spirit was on him and was giving him the capacity to speak right to the hearts of people right to really say what needed to be said. Have you ever been around someone like that when they just spoke is like wow everybody just kind of stops and listens. Jesus was that kind of man but to the nth degree he had a great authority when he spoke and so he's out sowing the seed. Now I think this is really important that we stop here because when Jesus showed up on the scene he didn't meet the expectations of the Jewish people the people who'd been waiting for years and years and years and years and years for a Messiah to show up he didn't meet their expectations he shows up on the scene and he's not the political leader that I we as we talked about in week one and I mentioned earlier he comes in and instead of like bringing the hammer he's got a bag of seed and he's throwing it are are you hearing that like it's subtle it's gentle. What does this tell us about the kingdom of God? It tells us that the kingdom of God is not a political kingdom. It's not about how can we get political agendas and go and put those on everybody else. In fact just a word here every time Christians have taken over the government it's been a bad thing for the church did you hear what I just said every time that the church decides that we're gonna be political and we're gonna drive our agenda through politics it goes bad for the church. The church actually doesn't thrive it shrinks now I'm not saying we shouldn't pray for our political leaders I'm not saying that we shouldn't stand up for those who are helpless and innocent and under injustice. In fact the church ought to be the leading voice in those places but if we think that if we could just get the right president in place that all of our problems would go away we are fools. If we could just get the right senator we could get just get the right congressman we could just get the right person in in office listen our our problem is much deeper than a political issue. And so I say that this morning because Jesus' kingdom wasn't political it wasn't one of power and bringing the hammer and bringing you know hey look we're just gonna bring some pain and suffering and you know smash everybody and lead the charge he came sowing seed subtly gently bringing the message of the good news in fact his kingdom his good news is flipped upside down because he says stuff like the first will be last and the last will be first he says things like that value doesn't come from how pretty you are on the outside and how polished you are and how moral you are but it comes from what God's doing in your heart. It comes from what Christ alone can do in us. It's flipped it's upside down it's inverted that's the kingdom the good news that Jesus brings so he wasn't bringing this message of hey I need a hearing I'm gonna come follow me just a reminder the kingdom was not a political kingdom but he does tell us that there's four different types of soils four different types of soils and so let's talk about this for just a minute because I know some of you in this room you came today and you're here because uh maybe you're searching for answers maybe you got drugged here by somebody because that happens a lot uh maybe maybe you're here because somebody else said hey you should go with us today uh maybe you're here because you want to be here but I know this is the case that all four of us can identify all of us can identify with one of these four soils. Okay? So I'm just gonna ask you to be open. All of us can identify with one of these four soils the first thing that we see here is he says that there's the path. There's the path. Now what does the path represent the path represents a hard heart. This is where we just approach God and his truth his message from an intellectual perspective. So we just come at it and we say okay does this make sense intellectually can I embrace this? Can I receive this this truth intellectually and here's the thing no one that I have ever met has come to put their faith and trust in Jesus by intellect only. Okay? Now I am not a pastor who believes we should check our brains at the door okay we come together on Sunday mornings we want it we want it to learn we want to grow together we want to our minds to be stimulated we want to hear we want to understand we want to ask hard questions it's a safe place to ask hard questions here. Because here's the thing we're never going to fully understand who God is. We're not because we're humans in fact if we base our whole decision about whether we trust God or put our faith in God on whether we can fully understand him you know what what that means that means actually we're trying to to ungod God or de-god God we're trying to basically make ourselves out to be like we have to we have to know everything. We have to be in control we have to we reshape God to fit our thinking and our minds. And so the point is this morning is that if you approach just purely from an intellectual perspective you hear but then you forget. Or you hear and you un and you and you try to take it in but then you just push it away you reject it because it doesn't make sense and that's what he's saying there's a hard path there's a heart and and notice that in the in this particular piece he says that there's an enemy the enemy is described as the birds that Satan comes in and he takes the seed snatches the seed right and he removes the truth before it can take root in their hearts but not only that there's another there's another soil and it's the rocky soil. The rocky soil is the shallow heart it's only emotional. Okay? Now these are the folks this is the type of soil where he says in the past he says you receive it with joy there's excitement there's like woo-hoo this is great this is awesome this is good they come on Sunday they go to a retreat they go to a conference they hear truth somewhere someplace and they get excited about it and they're amped up but then what happens it just stays at the emotional level it doesn't get applied. And so we see that the shallow heart the rocky heart the rocky soil is excited short term but long term struggles. Now in our lives we can identify with these kind of things right we get excited About certain things, and then we fall off the wagon. We just we're now here at the end of February. We've joked in here that if you made New Year's resolutions by now, you don't even remember what they were, right? Or you started working out and you were emotionally excited. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna do it this year, I'm gonna be healthy, you know, and now you're you're eating whatever, and uh you know you haven't worked out or exercised in the last three weeks, four weeks. So my my goal is not to like you know degrade you, uh, but just to be remindful. Like sometimes we can be really excited about something, but we're we struggle with follow-through, right? Sometimes we can be excited with God's truth, but then not follow through practically. And just know this that when God says something to us, conviction comes. Like conviction is when we feel that tension in our heart, like, I need to do something with this. Conviction, like this, I've got some issues, and I need to acknowledge those issues. But conviction is not the same as repentance. Conviction is not the same as actually turning away from our false beliefs and our false ideas to start walking out truth to walking out with God. In fact, scripture even tells us that there's two different types of sorrow. There's a worldly sorrow that says, oh man, I'm sorry I got caught. Kids know this well, don't we? Yeah, because sometimes in our lives we get caught. And it's like, oh man, I'm so sad I got caught. What a bummer, you know. People are gonna know, man, adult the same way. I'm sorry I got caught. I'm sorry I got caught uh looking at something I shouldn't look at. I'm sorry I got caught, you know, uh cheating on my taxes. I'm sorry I got caught uh lying to somebody about something. I got I'm sorry I got caught with this. So there's a there's a sorrow that comes in that point, but real sorrow, godly sorrow, actually leads to repentance. It leads to change, leads to a change in direction, to turning away from sin, to turning to God's truth and a new way of living. And by the way, who you really worship, who your really God, your your real gods are in your life and in my life, they're revealed in hardship. They're not revealed when things are good. Because what happens when things are good is that sometimes it's hard to tell what we really worship. It's hard to tell what we really put our hope in, what we really put our trust in. But when hardship comes, when your marriage falls apart, when sickness comes in and you see that you only have a certain amount of time left, uh, when you see that the wheels are falling off at work, you lose your job, hardship, difficulty comes in, your kids rebel against you and cause problems and cause wounds in your life, whatever, whatever it is that you face, those hardships will reveal what you really worship, what you really care about, what you really put your trust in and your hope in to rescue you and save you. They will. I've seen it in my life time and time again. And if you watch people's lives, you'll see that when the hardship comes, it's what do we turn to? Do we turn to God or do we turn to ourselves? Do we turn to the transcendent truth that He is there for us even in hardship, or do we turn to how can we figure this out? Or we maybe even turn to other things to just escape the hardships that we're dealing with, difficulty. But everybody puts their faith and trust in something. Are you with me? Everybody does. You don't, you're not exempt. Even atheists put their faith in something, they put their faith in themselves and their ability to reason through it, right? And I completely am okay with having conversations with atheists. I just want to make sure that we understand we all operate with faith. It's just a question of what is our faith in? What's the object of our faith? And so the third soil that he describes here, oh, I have to say this. I can't, this is too good. I don't want to miss it. I want us to realize that in the rocky soil, when the hardship comes, a lot of times for Christians, for believers, um, we want to see ourselves as sufferers who need a solution. But really, what we are is we are what? We're sinners who need a savior. This weekend at our marriage retreat, one of the most powerful truths, it just really convicted my own heart deeply, is that it's so easy for me to look at all my circumstances and to look at my wife and to say they're the problem. But you know where the problem is? If you weren't here this weekend, here's just some free truth for you. The real problem's inside of each one of us. It's us that I'm the problem. I'm the biggest problem in my marriage. I'm the biggest problem with my parenting. I'm the biggest problem with in my life, life walk with God because I'm selfish, I'm prideful, I don't want to admit when I'm wrong, I'm broken, I'm messed up. I'm the biggest problem. And the truth is, in your life, you're the biggest problem in your life. It's not your circumstances, it's not your issues. Does that hurt a little bit? It hurt me. So I'm with you. But it's the truth, it's what the scripture tells us. We're not just sufferers who need a solution, but we are sinners who need a savior. The third kind of soil he talks about is the weedy soil. Call this the crowded heart. The scripture talks a lot about being divided in our love. In fact, it even goes as far as to say in the book of James, he says that we are adulterers. Like, what? How does that work? How am I an adulterer? He says that don't you know that when you say you love God, but you love the things of this world, when you love the worldliness and you pursue things in the world, that you're actually divided in your love, which is adultery? You're not being pure to God, true to God. Truth is, all of us in this room, if we're honest, and I know some of us are struggling with being honest, but if we're really honest, we we are unfaithful in our commitments, aren't we? We're unfaithful. If we're Christians, if we're Christ followers, this is the thing. We know we're saved, but we're not perfect. We have issues still. And one of the things we struggle with is this issue of divided love. Not being faithful to God in all things. So we want to share the control of God when we're weedy. Uh we want, we we see other things in our life. He even says that there's things that pop up. There's things like wealth and comfort. There's things that are in our lives that they come up and they become more important to us than God. Those are the idols in our hearts. Those are the things that we really worship, and those things come in and they choke out who God is and what he has done. Now, the interesting thing about these two middle soils, the hard path is pretty obvious. The hard path is we would say those people don't believe in God. If your soil is hard, it is truly hard, and you don't want to hear God's voice, uh, we would say that in essence, you know, there's just not a belief that's there. But the other two are hard to discern. Right? Because as Christians, sometimes we can find ourselves in this position of being shallow in our faith, and when hardships come, things come to the surface. Also, but sometimes as Christians, as believers, even if we put our trust in Christ for our eternal salvation in the temporary, we can struggle sometimes with still not giving ourselves over to these things, and this thing can choke out our faith and our walk with God. And I thought this week as I was thinking about what does this look like? C. H. Spurgeon, a quote that I read from him, just really puts the nail on the head for us as Christians, as Christ followers. It says this if you know Jesus, you're in the boat to heaven and can't fall out. But you can fall on the boat and break all your bones and bloody yourself and spend all your time in the nurse's station. You hear what he's saying? If you've put your trust in Christ and you're a child of God, praise God. We didn't save ourselves, so we can't unsave ourselves. We're in the boat of salvation. Praise God. We know we're gonna spend eternity. We know we're gonna be with Jesus forever. However, if we choose to be foolish, we can still suffer the consequences of not listening to God. Right? We can still deal with the implications of disobedience. I love my children, but when they disobey, there's still consequences, aren't there? And so in our lives, I hope and pray that this morning, if you're a believer, if you're a Christ follower, you say, I believe in Jesus. Listen, you can still be foolish, and you can still have to face all the difficulties that come with foolishness. The consequences of that. The final soil that he gives us is this soil of the fertile heart, the humble heart, the good hearers, if you will. And he begins this parable and he ends this parable with this with the phrase, he who has ears, let him hear. The kingdom of God is discovered through hearing. And we're not just talking about like just hearing a sound, but we're talking about hearing and receiving and actually applying. In fact, James, I mentioned earlier, the same one that said that when we love the world, we're committing adultery. He also says, not just be hearers of the word, but doers, to apply it, to know we've really heard is to actually put it into practice, to receive it, and that it will bear fruit in our life. We said that week one, uh, the kingdom of Jesus is inaugurated in a very different way than the kingdoms of the world. Jesus doesn't come in to coerce us, he doesn't come in to control us, he's a gentleman. He doesn't come in to say to you today, you better listen to me. He comes in and he offers truth, he offers good news, he offers salvation, he offers hope, he offers life, he offers peace. Now there will be come, there will come a day when he does come back as the warrior king. And I say this fairly often because we need to have both pictures of Jesus. But right now, the good news that he came is a seed that's been sown, and we have an opportunity to receive it or to reject it. When he comes back, there will be no opportunity to receive or reject it. It will just be whose side are you on? What team are you on? And those who reject the truth will spend eternity separated from God, and those who receive the truth will be with him forever. And you need to hear that this morning because that's what the Bible says, that's what he teaches. And Jesus says if you want to be a part of the real, eternal, glorious, life-giving kingdom, then listen up. Listen, receive the message, receive the good the good news. And notice that in the passage, even as he's talking to his disciples, the key to receiving the truth that God has for us starts with Jesus. What are you going to do with Jesus? What do you believe about Jesus? Because if you believe that Jesus was just a good teacher, a good man, a nice guy, if that's what you believe about Jesus, but you don't believe that he really is the king and he's the savior, the messiah, you'll spend your entire life, I will spend my entire life trying to be a good person and just respecting him, but never coming to the place where I fall on my knees and say, Jesus, I need you to rescue me. I need you to redeem me. I need you to save me. And the Jesus that came is not just a Jesus who was a good person, who was moral, but he came as the Savior of all humanity, ultimately serving us by going to the cross in our place, substituting himself for us so we could have life, life forever. So, what does a receptive heart look like? I just want to give you three things as we close out. Receptive heart. A receptive heart, this fourth soil, this fertile soil, accepts the seed of the kingdom, the good news that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. It accepts it immediately. Accepts it immediately. The hard path, right? Hard, the birds come along, take the seed before it can take root. So the receptive heart accepts it immediately so that Satan can't snatch it away. And did you know that he does not want you to hear the message that we're saying today, that Jesus Christ is life? He doesn't want you to hear that. He does not want you to hear that salvation is found in Christ alone and not by your works. Not by what you can do, not by what I can do. He doesn't want you to hear that today. He wants you to keep doing what you're doing, to stay away from the truth. So the receptive heart accepts it immediately. The second thing is the receptive heart accepts it deeply so that when the hardships of life come, the trials of life come, you don't abandon faith. You don't abandon ship. Every one of us in this room are going to go through hard, difficult times, right? Those of you who are older, more seasoned, wiser, you know that life is hard. And when that comes, where will you turn? We have to accept the truth deeply. The third one, the third soil, the third, the third part of the fertile soil is to accept it exclusively. As John 14, 6 says, that Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Listen to me. Hear this this morning. Salvation is not Jesus plus anything. Okay? It's not Jesus plus works, it's not Jesus plus how smart you are, it's not Jesus plus how good you are. It's Jesus alone for salvation. And so we accept it exclusively. We realize that He alone is the Savior. Now, I don't know about you guys, but I'm a I have some tension this morning because there's places in my life where I feel like I can identify with rocky soil, and there's places I can identify with weedy soil. And I'm like, how do I fix that? Anybody feel that? How do I fix that? It's a big question. What type of soil am I first? And then how do I actually become the kind of soil that receives and is fertile and actually get to experience this 30, 60, 100fold? Well, let me let me tell you this: you can't fix yourself. Soil can't weed itself. Soil can't dig out its rocks, right? So who can? Who can fix us this morning? Jesus can, the gardener. Jesus is the gardener. Jesus is the farmer who sows the seed. He's also the one who can help eliminate the things that are distracting us if we will receive him, if we will open our hearts to him this morning. If you're not a believer in Christ, I'm so glad that you're here. And I want you to know that Jesus is saying to you today, salvation is offered. If you want to know him, if you want to spend eternity with him, it's offered to you, it's available. You can be saved, you can be rescued, and you're like, well, what am I going to be saved from? Well, I'll tell you what I was saved from. I was saved for myself. For my way that was leading to a path of destruction. He offers that to us as a gift. You don't have to work for it, you have to receive it through faith. He offers that to you today. But also, if you're a believer, the good news is being sown right now. Jesus is life, Jesus is wisdom, Jesus is truth, Jesus can overcome your addiction, Jesus can overcome your sinful ways, Jesus can overcome your indifference, he can overcome your callousness, he can overcome your hardship, he can overcome all the things that you're facing today. His spirit can enable us to be the people he's called us to be. And even that you go into your workplace, you go into your home, you go into your neighborhood, he can empower you to be sowers of the seed. He can empower you to do that. And I pray that today you will receive him, you will receive his message, you'll receive his truth, and that his Holy Spirit will work in your life. I can't make you receive this just like Jesus couldn't make his hearers receive it. But I can pray that God will soften our hearts to receive it. I want to do that now.