Two Journeys

In this episode, Andy and Wes discuss Acts 9:19-43, the early sufferings of Paul, as well as the ongoing ministry of the Apostle Peter.

The post Acts Episode 19: Saul’s Changed Life and Peter’s Powerful Ministry appeared first on Two Journeys.

In this episode, Andy and Wes discuss the earth-shattering account of the conversion of the great Apostle to the Gentiles, Saul of Tarsus.

The post Acts Episode 18: The Conversion of Saul of Tarsus appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Mark 4:21-25 and the fact that people's eternal destiny hangs on how they hear God's word, also their eternal health and daily fruitfulness of their souls depends on how they consider it.

Turn in your Bibles now to Mark chapter 4. We continue our study in this glorious G ospel of Mark. And as we do every week, we come to the key moment in life, the hearing of the word of God. But today we get to study what Jesus said about that moment in a very focused way. Verse 24 of chapter 4, Jesus said, “Consider carefully what you hear”, or literally in the Greek, “See what you hear, see what you hear”. Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes from hearing God's word. It is by faith that our sins are forgiven. It is by faith that we live and move and have our spiritual being before almighty God. So Jesus is saying be very careful that you understand and accept and believe and obey what you hear from me. When I speak the word of God to you, your soul literally hangs in the balance, Jesus is the saying. 

Everything comes down to the moment of hearing God's word. Do you hear God's word in such a way that you are alive spiritually, that you're in a reconciled relationship with God as a result, and that you then bear abundant fruit as a result of how you hear God's word? Or is the word having little or no effect on you at all? Your eternal destiny hangs on how you hear God's word.

Your daily spiritual health, your continued spiritual fruitfulness depend on the same, the moment of hearing God's word. So in every Christian worship service, the most significant thing is the ministry of the word. The most significant moment for each person sitting in the pews all over the world, wherever they sit to hear is what happens after your eardrums vibrate with the sound of the word of God. What happens then? 

Now if you come to church and you're evaluating the church architecturally. You like the carpet, you like the lighting, you like the comfort of the pews or you like the parking. We have good parking here, lots of parking. People were friendly. Coffee was excellent. Thank you, Bill, grateful. The donuts or whatever pastries were, they were your favorite flavors. What a great church. Even if you're evaluating the music offerings, whether this or that song was your favorite, or the bass guitar was too loud, James, or the drums were just what you like, acoustic guitar too soft. Listen, as important as many of those things are, all of them shrink into absolute insignificance compared to this one thing: see how you listen, watch what you hear, consider carefully the word of God. 

The eternal health and fruitfulness of your soul does not depend on any of those things or others like them that I've listed. Frankly the same is true of details of my preaching. The sound of my voice, the cadence I use, the grammar, the illustrations, whether I use humor or not, illustrations or not, whether you like my flow or not. Ultimately all that matters is did the preacher preach the pure word of God to you or not? And then if that happened, did I consider carefully the word that was preached to me? What did I do with it? The eternal health and daily fruitfulness of your soul depends on that. Consider carefully what you hear.

Now, the context of this statement is the parable of the seed in the soils. The seed is the word of God as we've been saying, the soils represent different human responses to the word of God. The seed hits the soil. In the first three cases, it produces no fruit at all ultimately, no harvest. In the last case, it produces an amazing abundant harvest, a varying sizes, 30, 60, even a hundred times what was sown. But the key moment is the soil's reception of the seed, that is the heart response to the word of God. Jesus concludes this with a challenge, verse 23 to all to hear, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear”. 

In private, Jesus explains his parables to his disciples. Look at verses 10-12, “When he was alone, the Twelve and the others gathered around him and asked him about the parables.” So he's alone, he's got his inner circle with him and “he told them the secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside, everything said in parables, so that ‘they may be ever seeing, but never perceiving and ever hearing but never understanding, otherwise, they might turn and be forgiven!’” So the parables given in general without any explanation whatsoever to the teaming crowd was Jesus is saying a form of judgment on them. The parables without explanation seemed to many of them like gibberish. But they actually were brilliant articulations of kingdom truth if you had ears to hear and got the explanation, they could understand it. Now those ears to hear, that's a spiritual capacity to understand spiritual truth about Christ and his kingdom. And it has worked in the hearts of the children of God by the secret working, the powerful working of the Holy Spirit of God. 

Now Jesus underscored that this parable, this parable of the seed in the various soil types was a gateway parable by which you could understand his whole body of doctrine, all of his parables, all of his teachings. Verse 13, Jesus said to them, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?" He then went on to explain that parable in clear terms to them. Verse 14-20, “The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and snatches away the word that was sown in them. Others like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others like seed sown among the thorns, hear the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others like seed sown on good soil hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop 30, 60, even a hundred times what was sown.” So the key moment in life is how you listen to the Lord when he speaks by his word.

1 Thessalonians chapter 1:4-5, Paul talked about that moment for the Thessalonians when he came to town and preached the word to them, “For we know brothers love by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.” And then in the next chapter, that same epistle, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, he says, "And we also thank God continually because when you heard the word of truth, the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe." That's the essence of it. This is not merely the words of a man, this is the word of God for me. 

Jesus himself said in John 5:24-25, he said, "I tell you the truth. Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned, he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, the time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the son of God and those who hear will live." Well, that's at that moment of hearing the word. In the parable of the Good Shepherd which he told in John chapter 10, he uses the same hearing moment again and again, and again, this idea of hearing him speaking to you. John 10:3, “the sheep listened to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” And “when he is brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

In the end, John 10:14, “I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me.” Verse 16, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” And then finally, John 10:27-28, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.”

“My sheep listen to my voice, they hear me speaking and they follow me.” That's the key moment. The good shepherd, Jesus is speaking to your soul and he's going out and leading out and you're following him all the way to heaven because you hear his voice. Well, that happens. How does that happen? It happens when you hear the word of God being preached to you. And you know this is not just a human moment, but this is actually God talking to you. You know that by the Holy Spirit.

So what I want to do now is draw out elements from this brief part of Mark chapter 4, elements of how to hear Jesus speaking to you based on these words. There's far more I could say about this moment from the entire New Testament, but I'm just going to zero in on what he says here. If we are being commanded to be very careful how we listen to God's word, what do these verses in particular teach us about that?

So first, listening so we may shine brightly. Look at verses 21-22, “He said to them, ‘Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don't you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever's concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.’”

Now, this is very interesting, you need to listen carefully to this section, so you'll know how I'm handling the word of God here. Be very careful how you handle it. Jesus' own teachings are meant to shine. That's what he's saying here. He's talking about his own teachings. They are meant to shine and not be hidden. So Jesus in the Sermon in the Mount uses the light on a stand image to talk about us. And I'm going to get to that, I will talk about that in a minute, but that's not what he's talking about here in Mark. In this context, he is talking about his own intentions in teaching these parables and more broadly, all of his teachings, Jesus's own purpose in his teaching ministry in general.

True, he is concealing the truth behind tricky parable language. That is true. And true, he's doing this as an act of judgment to his unbelieving Jewish Nation, that is true, he says that. Verse 11-12, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those on the outside, everything said in parables so that ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise, they might turn and be forgiven.’” But ultimately, it is not his desire that the truths of the kingdom of God remains secret and hidden. He didn't come into the world to start a mystery religion, a secret cult of insiders, a secret society in which a few select people know all the code language and come in behind closed doors and no one else sees and you've got all these secret passwords and all that. That's not what he came to do. This is not some secret mystery religion being started here. 

Jesus entered the world as the light of the world. John 8:12, Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." And again, the next chapter, John 9:5, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” So Jesus did not enter the world to keep hidden, not at all. It is God's purpose that Jesus would shine on people walking in darkness all over the world. Isaiah 9:2, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light and those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.” That's Jesus. Or again, as God the father said to God the son before he was ever incarnate telling him what his mission would be. Isaiah 49:6, “[God the father said to God the son] ‘It is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel that I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.’” 

That's not some secret mystery religion. That's the light shining for people all over the world. Furthermore, God's word itself is meant to be the light for the world. As the psalmist says in Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” So while the speaking of these parables is indeed a form of judgment, he does not intend that they remain a secret. So in this context, that's what these teachings mean. Verse 21-22, he said to them, "Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don't you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open." Do you see it there in Mark's gospel, just Mark's gospel, that's the context here? These teachings are going to be everywhere. It's meant for everyone. 

So in the course of time, the Holy Spirit ordained that Mark would write these words down in scripture. And also not just the parables, but the explanation of the parables which he gave in secret to the inner circle that day. He wrote that down too. And now I don't know if you noticed, but they're published for all the world to read. I know you've noticed. Yes, they're out and abroad, full access, God intends for this teaching to be made clear, to shine in this present darkness, in this devilish darkness, as a clear light of truth, bringing God's salvation to the ends of the earth. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl or a bed. That makes no sense whatsoever.

Whenever anyone back then went to the expense and trouble of filling up a lamp with expensive olive oil and trimming the wick and igniting it, they did it for a reason, to give light to people in the house. So it is with the incarnation, with Jesus coming, empowered by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the truth, he wanted it published widely and broadly. He wanted everyone to hear it. Practically speaking, this amazing gospel of Mark is part of a worldwide effort to get these truths to the ends of the earth. Start with Bible translation. The Bible, the whole Bible has been translated into 2300+ languages. Portions including Gospel of Mark which would be a top priority for New Testament translators, they are going to go right to it, are well over 3000 languages. Reaching, accessible to 7 billion people on earth. Meanwhile, Bible distribution has been staggering. 

Do you have any idea how widespread the Bible is? Print media, electronic media, in India, they're using SIM cards with the whole Bible on it plus other teachings besides. The technology is amazing. Everybody's got a smartphone all over the world. And on these SIM cards, you got whole Bibles in the Hindi language or in other languages that are appropriate to them. It's amazing. But how many paper Bibles are there? How many actual books are there? How could anyone know that? But Google knows. Five billion plus copies of the Bible, think about that, five billion Bibles. So that means Jesus's “secret” explanation of the parables are available and by means of those five billion Bibles. Furthermore, you should know the Bible's public domain. So you can just search online and get the text of the Bible easily. It's out there. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bowl. It's not God's intention, it's not the Holy Spirit's intention. He wants everyone to have this. 

So while Jesus initially hit his explanation to the insiders, his intent was to publish these explanations to the ends of the earth. He then goes on to speak of the apparent mysteries of these doctrines, look at verse 22 “For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out in the open.” Now again, you have to stick with me just here in Mark 4. These words are used to one purpose here, but similar words are used to very different purposes elsewhere. In other places, Jesus used this to speak a warning against thinking you can hide your sins from the holy eyes of God. You can't. So a clear example of that is Luke 12, every sin you have ever committed will someday be known far and wide.

There will be no secrets on judgment day. Don't be deceived. So Luke 12:1-3 is saying that, “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy”, putting on a show of religiosity and there's no truth behind it, corruption, don't do that. This is Luke 12:2- 3, “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known.” Same words, different application, different purpose at that point. “What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner room will be proclaimed from the roofs.” There he's talking about your words, not his word. But here in Mark, he's talking about his word and the apparent mysteries connected with it. So your secrets will be fully exposed on judgment day. Romans 2:16 says that, “On that day when according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of people by Christ Jesus.” So don't say that it's good to know that, just good to know. 

There are going to be no secrets on judgment day so live accordingly. Paul says, "I strive always because of judgment day to keep my conscience clear before God and man." But that's not what he's talking about here. In this context, he's talking about his own teachings, his parables which seem so dark and mysterious. The secrets of the kingdom of God are actually meant for people all over the earth. The hidden words of Christ, so obscure initially will be made clear ultimately, that's what he's saying. Bottom line is Jesus intends all his words, his teachings to be understood, fully understood, by people all over the world. There is no point whatsoever for Jesus to open his mouth and teach dark mysterious things that literally no person on earth can understand or ever will understand. That's foolish. He knows that. The purpose of his speaking is to be clear, to teach.

All right, so practical application for us is this. We should expect to be able to understand everything in the Bible. We should expect to be able to understand everything in the Bible. Jesus did not speak his words so that no one could understand him. Now I know some teachings are hard to understand. Peter said that about Paul's writings. And Peter wrote some of the hardest passages to interpret the New Testament! Peter! So he wrote some things that are hard to understand too. That doesn't mean you can't ultimately understand them. What would be the point of giving doctrines like that? Some of them are so clear they're like milk, a child can know them old them. But there are harder teachings. However, everything is ultimately meant to be clear. 

Now having said that, that's true of the teachings, that's where it starts. The question is next, what does that teaching do to you? How does that teaching, Jesus's beautiful teaching transform you? What does it do in your life? Now, here we go to the Sermon on the Mount for the same language, but now applied to you. Matthew 5:14:16, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and praise your father in heaven.” So once we have come to Christ, we have been rescued from darkness and brought into light and we become light ourselves, Colossians 1:13, you have been rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought over to the kingdom of the beloved sun. That's you, Colossians 1:13. And then it says in Ephesians 5:8-9, “For you were one's darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of the light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)” and find out what pleases the Lord. 

So now we are no longer darkness, we are light, we are the light of the world. And he's not going to ignite you with the truth of the gospel and hide you under a bowl or under bed, he's going to put you up on a stand and you're going to give light to everyone in the house, he's saying. Philippians 2:14-16 says “Do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold forth the word of life.” You're shining and you're holding out the gospel. 

So we listen to Christ's clear teachings, we look at Christ's beautiful radiant light, and then we ourselves are made beautiful, we ourselves are made glorious. Our lives shine, God puts us up on a lamp stand to give light to everyone in the world. And we do this as we share Jesus's teachings, especially the gospel.

Secondly, listening with a hungry heart, a hungry heart. Look at verse 24 and25, “Consider carefully what you hear”, that's what we began with, “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you ­–– and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.” So in this context, Jesus wants his disciples hungry for the word, hungry for the word. The measure that we use is the measure we'll receive. What this means is the more of God's word that we hungrily take in and understand and live out, the more he's going to show us. Remember how Jesus spoke of the good soil producing some 30, some 60, some 100 times what was sown. Christ wants his people burning with a holy ambition. You should be hungry for more. You should be hungry for more. That's what he's saying. Don't ever be satisfied. Hungry for more of God's word, hungry to have more return on God's investment in your life, a bigger harvest. I'm hungry for that.

I think about the Bereans remember in Acts 17:11, it says of them, they “were of more noble character than Thessalonians for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Hungry. They had a holy ambition to know more and more and more and more of God's word.

Perhaps the greatest articulation of this hunger for the word is in Psalm 119. Psalm 119, what a great Psalm that is. I'm just so hungry for God's word. So Psalm 119:10-11, “I seek you with all my heart. Do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” I would just commend scripture memorization to you. Memorize God's word, hide it in your heart so that you won't sin against God. Or again, Psalm 119:14, “I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.” I'm hungry, I want to be as rich as I can in God's word. There's no limit to it. Psalm 119:20, “My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times.” Now the psalmist considered carefully the word that he was reading through meditation. So going back to the whole opening concept, consider carefully how you listen. Meditation, the psalmist said, meditate on it, think deeply on it. Psalm 119:18, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.” You should pray that. Open my eyes, I want to see wonderful things in your word, God. Show me new things. Again, Psalm 119:97, “Oh how I love your law. I meditate on it all day long.” Or again, verse 99, “I have more insight than all my teachers for I meditate on your statutes.”

So the measure the psalmist uses for God's word is to be hungry for it, meditate on it, searching out evermore truth in it what can it tell me? That's what I think it means to consider carefully what you hear. Some truth I've found come immediately, got it right away. Others don't come right away. Basically this whole sermon and how I'm approaching Mark 4 has come as a result of my own meditations. I didn't just quickly jump over to the Sermon on the Mount and say, "Oh, we're the light of the world." That's not what's happening in Mark 4. So I meditate, it's like, that's interesting the Holy Spirit would do that with these same words. It was just meditation on God's word and then new insights come.

Beyond that, is the scriptures urging the measure of obedience. The measure of obedience. You hear God's word, but do you obey it, do you put it into practice? The more we hear and obey God's word, the more he will entrust to us. John 7:17, “If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” Jesus is saying, "You want to know who I am? Then get ready to do God's will. Get ready to obey, then you'll know who I am."

Or even better, John 14:21, which is a prime verse, I love this verse. I recommend it to you for memorization, “Whoever has my commands,” plus, “and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my father and I too will love him and we will manifest ourselves to him.” We will disclose ourselves to him. In other words, if you hear and obey God's word, you'll get to know God better, he will reveal himself to you. And it all comes down to hearing and obeying. If you hear and don't obey, you won't know God very well. So that's the measure you use, is the measure you'll receive. If we hungrily study God's word eager to put into practice the things we've learned, God will reveal more and more of himself and his purposes to us. Guess what? Your harvest will be bigger on judgment day. You'll know what God's doing and you won't waste your time on things that are going to be destroyed. 

The measure you use is the measure you receive. Now with this comes a pretty dire warning of judgment, and I would be remiss if I didn't zero in on it. “Whoever has, will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.” What does that mean? Well, there could be individuals that start out with great excitement in the word of God. Like the stony ground here, they start out with some joy, they're into it, they think it's great coming to church, listening to God's word, they have a basic understanding of it.

But if they don't continue in God's word and they don't mix it with faith and they don't mix it with obedience, even what they have will be taken from them, Jesus is saying. What does that mean? Fast forward a year, five years, 10 years, they don't care about God's word anymore. It's like they never heard it at all. What they had for that little while got taken from them and now it's nothing to them. Their hearts have gotten hard.

So Hebrews 3:7-8, it says “So, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart’.” It's a warning here. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Now this text in another place speaks of the measure you use toward other people. There's a measure you use toward the poor and lost people of the world, and that will be the measure you get rewarded with on judgment day. So you want to have that big judgment day reward, then be generous to other people, be lavish toward other people. We're so stingy. Be lavish. Luke 6:38 says, “Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over will be poured into your lap for what the measure you use will be measured to you.” So that's horizontal. You take in God's word, you're hungry for it, it comes in and then it starts pouring out. Yes, in teaching, and evangelism, but also in finances, caring for the poor and needy, just serving people. The measure you use is the measure you get on judgment day.

All right, lessons. Let me just ask some questions of you as we close. How would you characterize your hearing of God's word? Consider carefully what you hear, how would you characterize it? Do you understand that the hearing of God's word with a faith filled, submissive, obedient heart is the key to your eternal life and your spiritual health? Do you understand that? It's the key to everything? Are you in a regular pattern of Bible intake in your life? Are you feeding on God's word daily? Do you have a quiet time? Do you feed your soul on the word of God? 

I'm not asking, do you think a quiet time is a good idea? I didn't ask you that. I asked, do you have one? Is this your regular habit? That's what I'm asking. Do you expect that Christ will reveal his secrets to you if you meditate on it and go after it? If you come up to a hard text, do you work on it and ask him to reveal it to you? Do you expect that Christ's word will shine brightly like a light shining in your heart and in this present dark world? Do you expect that? 

Do you listen to God's words so that you yourself can shine brightly in this age? Lord, make me a better person, so that I can shine in this dark world. Are you holding forth, Philippians 2:16, holding forth the word of truth to people like you're a star shining in a dark place? Is that what you're doing? Do you boldly share the gospel to lost neighbors, coworkers, family members, even total strangers?

So I was on a plane this week and every seat in the plane was taken but the one next to me. That was odd because I like doing plane evangelism. I thought, "Okay, I'll be reading a book or something like that." An older woman had come and I knew the seat next to me, I knew its number and she said that number was hers and then promptly sat in the wrong seat. I wasn't going to get involved.

But then came, as the last person on the plane, a very large man. I mean, significantly large, and my heart sank. I'm being honest with you. I can be a little selfish when it comes to these things. I feel like I've been assigned by the airline a certain zone that's mine. You guys know what I'm talking about? And this guy he didn't ask, but he wanted to use some of my zone. And to make matters worse, he had a wallet in his pocket here in the side which just definitely it was like, if there were an alarm system, it would be going off. That's my area. However, we had the richest gospel conversation I've had in a long time. He was the one. Do you understand? He was the one that was chosen for me, not the older woman who was much smaller than he was. But that was the guy. His name was Pete, lived in Western Massachusetts, works for a record company, was coming from a weekend in Las Vegas. He needed the Lord. And I'm not saying he came to Christ. I'm saying we talked about it for about 45 minutes. I asked him to read the gospel of Mark, he said he would get it, he would read it with his mother, she's religious. So all right, great, the two of them can read it together.

I'm just telling you there's a selfishness inside my heart that fights against that but God can use us even as selfish as we are. Are we willing to do that? Do you have a hungry heart toward God's word? Do you show that in your life? Are you meditating on it? Are you memorizing it? Do you see that? And in your private life, would you say how are you responding to the word?

How would you characterize your spiritual state right now? Are you plateaued? Are you growing? Are you declining? Are you regressing? Are you bored? Are you dormant? Are you growing? What? What's happening? Now, the most important of all of God's words is the milk of the gospel, the simplicity of the gospel. “For what I received”, 1 Corinthians 15, “I passed on to you as a first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.” There is nothing more important than that for you. Have you believed in that for the forgiveness of your sins? It's everything. Your eternity depends on that. Have you? Have you trusted in Christ? 1 Corinthians 2:2, “For I resolve to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

 Now I make a pledge to you, a promise that as long as I live and I have this role to be the regular preacher of the word from this pulpit, I am determined to preach the word of God to you week after week. I have nothing else to offer you. And like Paul said to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:20, "I have not hesitated to proclaim anything that would be helpful to you." Or in Acts 20:27, I've not shrunk back from proclaiming the whole council of God, everything in God's word. My call is to do what Jesus called Peter to do, feed my sheep, feed my sheep, feed my sheep, John 21. That's what I want to do.

And I'm committed that all of the men who get up here to preach, I'll be on a study leave as I do in the summer to work on a couple of books and there'll be men here preaching to you, all of them are committed to the same thing or they wouldn't preach here. And then when my time comes and I'm not here anymore, you as a congregation are responsible for this pulpit to make certain that the person who stands here does the same, your souls depend on it.

Close with me in prayer. Lord, thank you for this clear message on the vital significance of hearing the word of God, consider carefully what you hear, how you hear. God work this in us now by the Spirit. Thank you for Jesus, thank you for his teaching, thank you for the word of God. Thank you that it's come to us pure, ready for us to feed on. Thank you for all these things in Jesus's name. Amen.

People's eternal destiny hangs on how they hear God's word, and the daily fruitfulness of their souls depends on how they consider it.

The post Consider Carefully How You Listen to the Lord (Mark Sermon 18) appeared first on Two Journeys.

In this episode, Andy and Wes cover Acts 8:26-40 and recount Philip’s evangelistic ministry in the life of an Ethiopian eunuch.

The post Acts Episode 17: Philip And The Ethiopian Eunuch appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches through a basic outline of the gospel message to equip and exhort Christians to share the good news of Jesus Christ.

So, what is the greatest, most urgent, most pressing need facing the human race? I suppose if you ask that question all over the world, you would get different answers depending on where you were. If you were in Ukraine, it would probably be the Russian invasion that would dominate people's responses. Their city's laid waste, live shattered, many people that they love have died. If you lived in Shanghai, it would probably be the COVID lockdown causing the already tyrannical Chinese government to become even more oppressive, quarantining millions for weeks in their homes, forcibly relocating hundreds of thousands of others to health centers that they're not free to leave. Perhaps the most under-reported humanitarian crisis of our day is the famine in South Yemen. Most of you probably have heard absolutely nothing about it. COVID and Ukraine has pushed it away from consciousness, but for the last six years, a brutal civil war has been going on there, pushing five million people, literally to the brink of starvation, another 16 million coming closer and closer to it every day. At a much lesser level, a friend of mine this week lives in Abilene, Texas, and there's a very dangerous wildfire going on there. He was looking at an app on his phone while we were at our meeting together, seeing where it was, what the boundaries were, because it was getting perilously close to his own home and to that of his sister. So if you live in Texas, maybe that concern would dominate your mind. Perhaps many Americans would look at the economy, skyrocketing cost of gasoline, of groceries, the inflation that's the worst we've seen, I think in 40 years, others would cite the baby formula supply chain crisis. I could go on and on. 

We live in a hurting world, very much so, but as tragic and pressing as all of these are not one of them can be the answer to my question. The most pressing, the most urgent, most consequential issue facing the human race today is spiritual lostness. Living life under the wrath of an omnipotent holy God, the danger of spending eternity in hell that far outweighs all of these things I've listed, and a thousand other crises, because all of those are temporal, but the loss of a human soul is eternal. This includes the people that we live around right here in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, the Triangle area, most tragically because lost people all over the world have no faith. They don't see the imminent danger that they're in at every moment from the wrath of God. They don't know what will happen to them on Judgment Day. They don't know the remedy, the good news, the only remedy that God has given to the human race for this greatest problem, and that is, the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what we're going to swim in today, that's what we're going to talk about today.

Friends, we Christians have the privilege of being the sowers of the eternal seed of the gospel, and how joyful we are when we see that seed take root in good hearts that are prepared by the Holy Spirit resulting in the eternal life for that person, how joyful we are to be part of that process. This past week, I was at my trustee meeting with the International Mission Board. My favorite part of those meetings every time is when the mission leaders from various affinity groups around the world give stories of the effects of the gospel in people's lives. One of the mission leaders told about a Muslim woman in Indonesia, a highly educated professor at a university there. This woman had the same dream for seven consecutive nights. In that dream, she was on one side of a locked door and Jesus Christ was on the other side, but she couldn't get through the door. Seven straight nights, the same dream. It led her, it forced her, to find a Christian woman that she knew there in her city, to go explain the dream and to find out more. That Christian woman led this Muslim professor to faith in Christ, by sharing the gospel, “God, Man, Christ, Response” that we're going to walk through this morning. She shared the gospel and she came to a genuine faith in Christ. That night she had a similar dream, but significantly different. She came to the door, Jesus Christ on the other side, unlocked the door, open it and she walked through it into what she described as the most beautiful place she'd ever seen. That's a better dream. Imagine being that Christian woman who had the privilege of leading this lady to faith in Christ, but that's not all. This woman was immediately savagely persecuted by her Muslim family. This happens all over the Muslim world when people come to faith in Christ. Her mother slapped her in the face physically, and said, “if you continue as a Christian, you can no longer be our daughter.” The woman courageously responded, “I would rather lose my parents than my savior.” Now we Christians are going to spend eternity with that woman and other people like her. I'm looking forward to hearing all the stories, aren't you, in heaven? How exciting that's going to be.

Isn't it incredible that we, as evangelists, as missionaries, get to plant the eternal seed of the gospel in people's hearts? Don't you want to be part of that work, have stories to tell? We're making our way sequentially through the Gospel of Mark. The central theme in the Gospel of Mark is stated right from the first verse, Mark 1:1, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the son of God.” It's a theme statement for the entire gospel. Jesus, as the son of God, is the essence of the good news to the human race, especially when we understand that he came to earth to save sinners from their sin. Essential to that good news, that gospel is the understanding of sin as rebellion against God, the king. So Jesus begins his public ministry and gives this timeless call in Mark 1:15, “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near, repent and believe the gospel.” Soon after that, he begins recruiting people to join him in his evangelistic missionary work. He recruits some fishermen and says, “Come follow me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.” By the end of the Gospel of Mark, he has died for sins, has been raised from the dead, and commissions his church to go out and preach the gospel[Mark 15, 16]. He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news, the gospel, to all creation. Whoever believes the gospel and is baptized will be saved, saved from hell, from condemnation. Whoever does not believe the gospel will be condemned.”  

 In our study of the Gospel of Mark, we are moving through it and we've come to the great chapter 4, and it begins with the parable, the seed and the soils. We've said that the focus  in the parable is on the soils. They represent four different heart responses to the gospel. The hardened path represents the individual who hears the gospel and doesn't understand it at all, and Satan instantly snatches away the gospel. The stony ground here represents those who hear the word and initially respond with joy, but since they have no root, whenever trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed sown among the thorns represent those who hear the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the seed, making it unfruitful. Then the good soil, the last soil, represents a noble and good heart that hears the word, understands it, accepts it, and by perseverance produces a harvest 30, 60, even a hundred times, what was sown. 

When I first preached on that parable several weeks ago, I said just because someone hears the word and rejects it, doesn't mean that we've done something wrong, that we're preaching the wrong message, that there's something in our methodology that needs to change. I said that there's a temptation to re-engineer the seed of the gospel to make it more popular. Years ago during a presidential campaign, I was watching a debate that was going on. The network had gotten a focus group, they called it, of people of various different political persuasion across the spectrum. They were going to watch the debate, and they had a device in their hands which they could use to respond in real-time to what was being said by the candidates. If they twisted the knob to the right, it was favorable. If they twisted it to the left, it was unfavorable. The further you twisted in each direction, the more strongly you felt about that, more strongly favorable, or strongly unfavorable. Each of these participants in the focus group had a colored line going across the screen, superimposed on the debate as it was going on, “favorable, more favorable, really favorable or  I don't like that” at every moment, all the way through. I would imagine both campaigns would be very interested in that recording of their views. They'd be able to go back and look at the message and talk to their candidate about tailoring the message to make it more palatable to the electorate. Some politicians do their work that way. Friends, this is the very thing we must never do when it comes to the gospel, we cannot reengineer the seed. We cannot take the gospel message back into the laboratory of our intellect and our imaginations and creativity and tweak it. It’s something we must never do. 

Paul said, in Galatians 1:11-12, “I want you to know brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, rather I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” Earlier in that same chapter, Galatians 1:6-9, Paul said, “I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you, let him be eternally condemned. As we have already said now, so now I say again, if anybody is preaching to you a gospel, other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned. In that context, Paul is addressing some Galatian false teachers who are re-engineering the gospel seed. They're trying to change its basic message. Paul said, when we do that, we're preaching something that is no gospel at all. In every generation of church history, all twenty centuries, false teachers have sought to do that very thing, to re-engineer the gospel seed, turning it into a man-made gospel that is no gospel at all. They take the seed of the gospel found in the New Testament, they bring it into the laboratory of their own intellects and imaginations and creativity, and they come up with something different to make it more palatable to the human audience. If we're going to be faithful to the Lord, we must preach the true gospel. We have to sow the good seed of the eternal gospel.

So this morning I want to walk through a basic outline of the gospel message. We publish it in your bulletin week, after week, after week, and I want to walk through it. It has a four part outline, “God, Man, Christ, Response.” I know that there are many good and healthy ways to summarize the gospel message. I don't think this is the only way to do it. However, I do think that if you are going to preach the true gospel, in whatever approach you take, you're going to say healthy, biblical things about God, you're going to say true things about the human condition. You're going to talk about Jesus Christ and you're going to call for a response. So however you do that, you're going to be doing those things, if you're preaching the true gospel. 

Central to the evangelistic effort, as we've been saying, is getting the gospel message right. Biblical evangelism is not about technique. It's so easy to think of evangelistic training as tactics and techniques like learning to sell insurance from last year's leading regional sales experts. You bring this guy in and he'll teach you the sales techniques. That is not what's going on here at all. Rather evangelism is a rescue mission for people who are spiritually dead, they're dead in their transgressions while they live, they're living, dead. It's more like a CPR effort, mouth to mouth resuscitation, something like that. Someone pulled out of the pool and is turning blue by the side, and you have seconds to work with, but it's even worse than that. They're already dead in their transgressions and sins, and they have no idea how much longer they're going to be physically alive. There's only one power on earth that can resurrect them from the dead spiritually, and that is the gospel. Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” This timeless gospel message can do it. It does do it. It raises people from the dead spiritually. Now we don't do that, we deliver the words of the gospel, but the Spirit has power while that delivering is going on to raise people from the dead spiritually. By the way, all of you who are Christians, that've happened to you already. Praise God for your resurrection, spiritual resurrection. Now we get to be part of seeing it happen in other people's lives. 

 Behind my approach today is the belief that we need constant reminders in the gospel. My strategy with the pulpit here is to go sequentially through books of the Bible, through passage, after passage, but I'm also committed to preach the gospel every single week. I just don't do it as the only thing I do that week. This week, this is the only thing I'm doing. Next week we'll be back to the usual process. I'll give you about five minutes of gospel, the rest will be the text, whatever it is we're walking through, but I never, ever want anybody coming here to this church, wondering what must I do to be saved, and they don't know what to do when they leave. This week, we're going to go carefully through the gospel. We're going to remind ourselves; Paul thought reminders are vital. I Corinthians 15:1-2, “Now brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preach to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel, you're saved if you'll firmly to the word I preached to you.” So I want to remind you, as Paul said, about the gospel.  I think we should do the same. Why? First, because it's vital that each and every one of you hearing my voice has believed this gospel for your own salvation. You're going to spend eternity in either heaven or hell, based on your response to this gospel message. So, that's top priority. Secondly, because the more the evangelists and missionaries themselves have drunken the sweetness of the gospel, the more effective evangelist and missionaries are going to be. Thirdly, we need reminders because we're never done with the gospel message. We don't graduate from the gospel, saying “that's elementary school. We're in graduate school now, we're beyond gospel.” No, you'll never be beyond the gospel. Tim Keller said that the gospel is  not the ABCs of Christianity, but the A to Z of Christianity.

Fourth, we need reminders because we forget, we forget the gospel message. Fifth, we need reminders because there's a difference between recognizing the gospel when you hear it and being able to put it into words yourself. We want all of you to get to that second stage where you can actually articulate the gospel yourself. Not just say, yeah, that's it, that's the gospel, when someone else says it. Six, we need reminders, because we're under constant pressure from the world to flesh and the devil to drift away from the gospel, individually and as a church, it's happened time and time and time and time and time again to local churches. We can't merely assume that the gospel will be around decades from now. We have to fight for it daily. As Hebrews 2:1 says, “We must pay more careful attention to what we have heard, [that's the gospel], lest we drift away.” These are the reasons why we need to be reminded of the gospel. Also, the elders have set before the church, a lasting church- wide goal concerning this issue, evangelism. Our prayer has been, and continues to be, that God would pour out the Holy Spirit on this church resulting in a durable culture of evangelism, as demonstrated by creative and bold evangelistic efforts on the part of the church members, resulting in people genuinely converted, growing in faith in Christ. That's what we want to see, a durable culture of evangelism. This sermon fits into that overall goal.  

Now the outline, you've already heard it. The four part outline is simple, “God, Man, Christ, Response.” You're going to say things about God, about the human race, about Jesus Christ, and you're going to call for a response if you preach the gospel. Let's unfold it a little more. The approach that we've recommended for years is to look at the offices of God, of what he does. We want a God- centered gospel. One of the ways we understand that is by understanding the offices, or the roles he takes toward the human race. The four offices in this first section are creator, king, law giver and judge— creator, king, law giver and judge. Furthermore, there's a logic; because God is the creator, he has the right to rule as king. In order to rule as king, he must give laws by which he governs his kingdom. Then he evaluates us based on our obedience to his law. So there's a logic to it, from creator to king, to law giver, to judge.

 The second section, man or humanity, the human race. We link back to the four offices we just talked about. Man is created by God, the creator. We are rebellious against God, the king, we are transgressors of God's laws, and we're under judgment by God, the judge. So, that's the problem, that's the issue that we face. 

The third point is that Jesus Christ is the solution to that problem. Jesus Christ gives us the fifth office that we'll focus on, and that is God, the savior, God, the savior. God alone can save us from God and from his wrath, and he does through Jesus Christ. When we're preaching the gospel, and we get to the Christ section, we're effectively giving a miniature biography of Jesus. We're tracing out his life from his birth, through his sinlessness and his miracles, to his substitutionary atoning death and his resurrection. You're tracing those things out. You have to talk about those things or you're not preaching the gospel. So we walk through those things: Jesus' supernatural life, his incarnation, he is the God-man, he is sinless and he did miracles. That's his life. But the centerpiece of why he came to earth is to die in our place, under the wrath of God, substitutionary atonement is the title that we give it. Jesus dying in our place, taking the wrath of God, and also giving to us his perfect righteousness by which we survive Judgment Day, a substitutionary death. Then we must talk about his saving resurrection. The fact that he rose from the dead physically, because they need to believe this. They need to be able to confess with their mouth, “Jesus is the Lord”, and believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead. If you look at the book of Acts, the apostles always, always, always refer to the resurrection, so we want to preach the resurrection and we want to talk about Jesus' salvation gifts. What does he offer us? He offers full forgiveness of sins, past, present and future. He offers us eternal life, a quality, a richness of life now on earth, but then both a quality and an eternality of life forever in heaven, he offers us eternal life. That's what he has come to give us. 

Then finally, a response. You must call, as an evangelist, you must call for a response. This isn't just an interesting story. No, no, no. This is the gospel. This is the only hope you have of surviving Judgment Day, you must respond. You, as the evangelist, as a missionary, need to bring the people to a response. “What do you think about what I've said? Are you ready to trust in Jesus as your savior?”  You call for a response, this is something that the person must do, and then some things that they must not do. So what they must do, as you've already heard in Mark 1:15, is repent and believe the gospel. They need to repent, they need to turn away from their sins and turn to God, willing to serve him as their king, that's repentance. They need to believe that Jesus will save them, that Jesus is a powerful savior, and that if they trust in him, their sins will be forgiven and he will welcome them into heaven, that they are trusting in Jesus. So repent and believe, that's what they must do. What they must not do is to try to work for it, to try to earn their salvation. They need to understand that salvation is by grace, not by works. We want to make that very clear. The religions all over the world are religions of self-effort. If people are alarmed about their concern, they might try to go do some good things. They must not do this. They must not trust in their own works, they must not wait for it. “If today you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts.” You don't know that you'll be alive tomorrow. Today is the day of salvation.” You want to press them that they must respond as soon as they can, as they're hearing the gospel now. So, that's outline “light.” 

Now you're thinking, we're going to get into outline “heavy.” Yes. How much of this do I have to memorize? As much as you want, but the basic outline is what you need to do. What I want to do is I want to marry it to scripture verses, because scripture has power. The Bible has converting power. The more of the scripture you can weave together in your gospel presentation, the better. Some of the verses you already know that you don't know that you know them, you do. When I cite them, it's like, “yeah, yeah, I know that one.” Others, you may have to work to memorize and get ready. Let's walk through it. 

First God, the creator. Do you have any idea of a good Bible verse on God creating everything? There's one of these verses, at least I know you know: Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” As we begin sharing the gospel, especially in an ever increasingly pagan America, you can't start from a basic Judeo-Christian knowledge, they don't have it. But what they do have is experience living in a physical world. You can do this with international scholars that come from atheistic countries, you start with creation. You talk about sunrises and sunsets and beautiful skies and starry nights and powerful oceans and mighty rivers and scenic vistas and animals and birds, eagles, cattle, and human beings. The fact that God made everything. That in him, we live and move and have our being. Saturate that time with God, the creator, the evidence of God is around them all the time. God created all things.  

Now it stands to reason if God created all things, he should be and is king over all things as well. He rules and reigns over all things. His throne is set at the center of the universe and all things revolve around that throne. God, the creator of all things is the king of all things. Now let's stop and let me talk about this. This is the fundamental problem that they have. They don't want to yield to God's kingly reign. This, I say they must do, or they're not going to be saved. They have to take Jesus's yolk upon them, his kingly yolk. They have to submit to his kingly rule. This is not optional. They need to understand the throne of God set at the center of the universe. God, the king, rules over all things. Psalm 47:7 is not a familiar verse to you, but it's a very easy one, “God is king of all the earth.” There you go. That's as simple as it gets. The hardest part about that verse is remembering the reference, but just that's a verse. How many other verses could you find that talk about the kingship of almighty God? Because God is king and reigns over his kingdom, he is a lawgiver. Here I would commend to you that you memorize a simple outline of the 10 commandments, and that you also memorize the two great commandments, the Ten Commandments and the two great commandments are essential to a healthy gospel presentation. If they don't understand the law of God, they will not be convicted of their sins, they will not know why they need a savior. They'll think they don't need a savior, but the law of God has convicting power. I think you could turn to any of a variety of laws, but the Ten Commandments seem to be set apart in scripture as unique and special and powerful. So you could memorize a simple outline, “ I am the Lord, your God, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make any idols or worship any idols. You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Honor your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.” It’s a very simple outline. Exodus 20 is more involved, but that's just a simple outline, just knowing the 10 commandments. Not only that, you want to circle back as Jesus did with the Sermon on the Mount, and look at two commandments in particular he talks about: “ You have heard that it was said you shall not murder, but I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother is in danger of the fire of hell. And you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Jesus is talking about heart sins. Most people make it through the world not murdering anyone, but no one makes it through without hateful anger in their hearts toward others. Many people make it through the world never literally physically committing adultery, but no one makes it through without lust. What's interesting is the 10th Commandment is just being applied back to the other nine. The  10th Commandment is about coveting. What organ do you use to covet? Your heart. It's something inside. No human government could ever make a law against coveting because there's no way to enforce it, or even know it's happening, but God can. What that means is God is looking at your heart. Jesus just takes that in his logical with all the 10 commandments, all of them are hard issues, all of them. 

Then the two great commandments, whereas the 10 commandments, nine of the 10 are negative, “You shall not. You shall not. You shall not. You shall not.” The positive one, Honor your father and mother.” Meet someone that tells you that they did that. There was that rich young ruler who claimed to have honored his father and mother. Jesus could have whistled in the father and mother and say, “Tell me about this kid when he was a teenager.” Well, how did that go? Positive commands are harder than negative ones. Jesus said the two great commandments are, “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.” That means every moment of your life, with every fiber of your being that you will be filled with love for God and show it by obeying him and serving him and worshiping him, and doing what pleases him every moment of your entire life. The second commandment is like it, horizontally, “You'll love your neighbor as you do yourself.” The way you feed and clothe and care for yourself and panther yourself and prefer yourself and... Do that for others the same way you do it for yourself. Who does that? Do you not see how the 10 Commandments understood properly, as Jesus does from the Sermon in the Mount, plus the two commandments, as Jesus said, all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments, will snag every sinner and show them their sin. You as the evangelist, you need to do that law work. You need to slow down and go into that, and talk about  the laws by which the king of the universe governs. Not only is God lawgiver, he is also a judge. Many verses teach this, Psalm 96:13 says, “The Lord comes to judge the earth.” He will judge the earth with equity and righteousness. God is judge. God is also holy, Habakkuk 1:13, “ Your[God] eyes are too pure to look on evil. You cannot tolerate wrong.” He's not going to tolerate anything on judgment day.  So, that's the God section. 

Now the man section, the humanity section, the human race. Man is created by God, the creator. You know this verse as well, Genesis 1:27, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them.” We're created in the image of God by God. We are created to be like God, to know God, to love God and to serve God. That's what we were created for. However, we are rebellious against God, the king. Universally rebellious, Romans 3:10-12 says, “There is no one righteous, not even one, no one who understands, no one who seeks God, all have turned away. They've together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one.” If all that's too much to memorize, go with Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” I like Romans 3:10-12, because it's more detailed, “There is no one righteous, not even one.” We are rebellious against the 10 Commandments and the two Great Commandments. Because of that, we're under judgment by God, the judge. And judgment day is coming. It's our job as evangelist to make the invisible as if it were visible so that they can see it. They're going to be arraigned before the throne and give an account for everything done in their bodies, everyone is. As Jesus said in Matthew 12:36,  “I tell you that men will have to give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.” It’s a very powerful verse for evangelism, memorize it.   The penalty, the wage, for our sin is death. “The wages of sin is death”, [Roman 6:23] ,that is eternity in hell.  Jesus clearly warned about eternity in hell. So the key question is how can a sinful person enter heaven, where God allows no sin? As you're sharing the gospel in doing this, they should, at some point, they're going to start saying things like, “well, nobody's perfect. Everybody does these things.” They're going to be saying out of their own mouth, the thing the Bible says, everybody's sinful, but they're saying it from a perspective of God wouldn't expect us to be better than we can be, et cetera. You need to say, “God is holy, and he does hold the law over us, and we're in danger of hell because of it. That's why we need Christ.” If we don't do the law work, they won't think they need a savior.

 Now we get to Christ, God's fifth title, savior. Savior, salvation, save from what? We don't use that language for anything except some extreme danger. The angel said to Joseph, concerning Mary's miraculous pregnancy, Matthew 1:21, “You'll give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” That's what Jesus came to do, save us from our sins. From everything that sin has done to us and to the world, comprehensive salvation, but primarily for our purposes, save from condemnation and wrath for our sins. So we get into the biography of Jesus. We talk about his supernatural conception, the virgin birth; Jesus' fully God, fully man. It's vital to understanding the gospel. No passage speaks about the theology of the incarnation with more power than John 1:1, and John 1:14. It says, “In the beginning was the word.” Then as you share the gospel, you say, “the word is Jesus Christ.” It’s very clear from first 18 verses of John's gospel, we're talking about Jesus. “In the beginning was the word, Jesus Christ, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” So Jesus is God. Then verse 14, “The word became flesh [that is, human,] and made his dwelling among us.” So the God-man, Jesus, is fully God and human. Secondly, we talk about his sinlessness. Jesus was sinless. “He committed no sin,” [I Peter 2:22].  He's sinless. That's vital, if he's not sinless, he can't be our substitutionary atonement. 

He did miracles. I think it's good to memorize a miracle story. My favorite is the four friends bringing the paralyzed guy. I love that story [Mark 2]. It's a great story. You don't have to get all the words right, but it wouldn't hurt you. You know the story about the four friends bringing him. Jesus is doing all these healings, healings, healings, and he can heal anything, and they hear about it. They bring their paralyzed friend. They can't get near him because there's a huge crowd. So they go up on the roof, they dig through the roof. They lower him down on ropes and put this paralyzed man right in front of Jesus. It says, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Take heart son, your sins are forgiven.’” That's powerful. That's the best miracle story to memorize, because it brings you from the miracle to why Jesus came, to talk about the forgiveness of sins. He says, to the paralyzed man, “That you may know that the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, I tell you, ‘Get up, pick up your mat and walk.” And he did. Or the stilling of the storm, the feeding of the 5,000, raising Lazarus from the dead. Any of these mighty miracles, memorize a story, make it real, make it powerful. People will be interested in it. It shows the power of Jesus as the God-man. 

 Then we get to the core of the gospel, Jesus' substitutionary death on the cross, we preach Christ crucified. This sinless man, this servant, this healer, this teacher, died in our place under the wrath of God that we might have full forgiveness of sins[ I Peter 2:24]. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live for righteousness for by his wounds, you have been healed.” [I Peter 2:24]. Essential to this is the transfer of guilt, our sins transferred to Jesus and he dies under the wrath of God. His righteousness transferred to us, and we live forever in it. II Corinthians 5:21 is the best verse for this, “ God made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.” They must understand this exchange, our guilt to Jesus and he dies, his righteousness to us, and in that, we live. That exchange happens by faith, we receive that gift by faith, and not by works. As a result of this, then we turn to Jesus' saving resurrection.  There are many verses we could use for this. I Corinthians 15, “Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, he was buried. And on the third day he was raised, according to the scriptures. And after that, he was seen by Peter and the twelve and other eyewitnesses.” Jesus physically rose from the dead, the tomb was empty. Now what does he come to give us? First, full forgiveness of sins. If you want to do that miracle story, you've already said it, “Take heart son, your sins are forgiven.” All your sins, past, present, and future, forgiven by God. He will not hold it against us, or as Ephesians 1:7 says, “In Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” And not only that, but eternal life, Roman 6:23, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ, Jesus, our Lord.” 

Now, the response. This may be the hardest part. You have to press them for a response. You have to make them realize they have to make a decision about this. This isn't just information. Probably the most convicting verse on this is Acts 2:40. After Peter gives  his great Pentecost sermon, it says, “With many other words, he warned them and pleaded with them, save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Warning and pleading. That gets a little awkward in airplane evangelism, friends. They might call the flight attendant. It was fine until that, but now we're at warning and pleading. I don't think I've ever reached the level of warning and pleading, but I have had such a connection with people that I've sharing the gospel that I earnestly yearn for them to spend eternity with me in heaven, and I told them that. I've also said, “I pray that God will not let you sleep tonight until you repent and give your life to Christ.” This  is if they defer, but you must bring them to a decision. You must bring them to know they have to decide what they're going to do with the gospel. They should be asking, once you do the law work, what the Philippian jailer asks, “What must I do to be saved?” If they're not asking that question, they're not ready to be saved, and they may not be ready. It doesn't mean you've wasted your time. You could be doing that hard work and others will reap them later. You're not wasting your time, but this is what they need to come to that point. 

So what must they do? We've already said they must repent and believe. Memorize  Mark 1:15, “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near, repent and believe the gospel.” Repent is turning away from sin and turning toward God. They need to believe the gospel, believe that Jesus can and will save them. At this point, you want to urge them to call on the name of the Lord, Romans 10:9, “Everyone who calls in the name of the Lord will be saved.” What does that mean? Well, generally it's prayer. Some evangelists are very against the Sinner's Prayer. Well, they're sinners and I'd like them to pray. So I guess I'm not against sinner's prayers. There's nothing magic about it, I don't feed them the words. If I've done the work as an evangelist, they should know what to pray. I ask them, “Wwhat do you want from God?”  “Well, I don't want to go to hell.” “Tell him. Anything else?”  “I’d like to be forgiven.”  “Tell him. Anything else? Tell him what you want, and he will hear you. Call in the name of the Lord, Jesus.” And I just listen to them pray. If this is a supernatural work of the spirit, you're going to get to hear the first prayer of a newly born again person. How exciting is that? Prayer isn't magic. What happens is there's already faith, and then they call on the name of the Lord. That's what they must do. What they must not do, don't work for it. Don't try to earn it. Ephesians 2:8-9 is great for this, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not by work so that no one can boast.” Secondly, don't wait for it either. “If today you hear his voice, don't harden your heart.” [Hebrews 3] or II Corinthians 6:2 says, “I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, today is the day of salvation.” You don't know you'll have tomorrow. You don't know. If they do that, they'll get eternal life now, “If anyone's in Christ as a new creation, the old is gone, everything is new.” They get a new life now, a life of obedience. Then they get to live forever beyond death. They don't need to fear death. How awesome is that? “I am the resurrection in the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” Call for a response. Mack Stiles in his book on evangelism, Marks of the Messenger, said this is a thing you can say. “I think this is an urgent matter in your life. I think you understand the gospel now. And really what is left for you is to place your complete faith and trust in Christ. What is stopping you from doing that?” Then listen. “What would stop you from placing your life in Christ's hands? What would stop you from repenting and believing in Christ?” Listen, see what they say. 

Central application has been the same all the way through the sermon, repent and believe in Christ, if you haven't yet done that. Trust in Christ, don't leave here unconverted. You don't know that you'll ever hear the gospel this clearly again, but if you're a Christian just drink in this gospel message for your own health and vitality. Get healthy by feeding on these truths. How sweet are they? Ask yourself these three diagnostic questions. Do I know the gospel? Do I live the gospel? Do I speak the gospel?

Pray for God to give you boldness like the apostle Paul prayed. He said, “ Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should.” Get people to pray that for you. Or Colossians 4:4, “Pray that I may proclaim it clearly.” Fearlessly and clearly. Get a couple of people to pray for your evangelistic life, and pray for God to give you opportunities to share a gospel outline like this, even this week.  Take action. Mack Stiles says, “Do a body check. Check your head, is the gospel on your mind throughout the day? Check your gut. Are you willing to be bold in the face of your fears? Check your feet. Are you willing to move out into the hostile world to speak the truth? Are you willing to go where unbelievers are, to meet them and to know them and eventually share with them?” Pray for yourself. Pray for lost people you know by name. Plan, look ahead at your vacations, your work life, your business trips, your patterns of life. Ask the Lord to go ahead of you and prepare good works for you to do, good works of evangelism. Think through issues that unbelievers are likely to bring up, and start getting answers to some of the questions they bring up. Prepare, memorize and outline like this. You already have one part of it memorized. What is it? “God, Man, Christ, Response.” There, that's easy. Now, fill it in, prepare, and then get started. Start living life centered around your calling as an evangelist, the hobbies, your lifestyle, things you do with your kids, the coffee shops you frequent. Use your home as a base of evangelism through hospitality. Gather with Christians together to pray for lost people you know, gather with non-Christians to go through a simple four-week outline of the Gospel of Mark. Serve, find ways to get involved in the issues of our community so that you can meet lost people and share the gospel with them.

Close with me in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the time we've had to walk through the gospel today. Thank you for this opportunity. Lord. You're good to us, you're kind and gracious that you not only save us, but you also recruit us and command us to be messengers of the gospel message. Help us to be faithful to that calling. And we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

The basic outline of the gospel message aimed at encouraging and equipping Christians to plant the seed of the good news of Christ.

The post The Gospel Seed (Mark Sermon 17) appeared first on Two Journeys.

Luke connects the death of Stephen with the first persecution against the church and shows how it actually advanced the gospel.

The post Acts Episode 16: Persecution and the Growth of the Church in Samaria appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis returns to the Parable of the Soils in Mark 4:1-20 to discuss further the one Jesus implied the most important of his parables.

Turn in your Bibles now to Mark 4. It’s the second week we're going through this passage.  Psalm 139 ends with these words, "Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." I'll never forget the events of June 21st, 2020, Father's Day, almost two years ago now, as I woke and got dressed for church that day, a Sunday, getting ready to preach. I had no idea that by the end of the day, my life would be in the hands of a cardiologist, that I will have had a heart attack. I had no feeling, no sense of the danger within. One of the significant arteries in my heart was 90% blocked. Another lesser artery, a hundred percent blocked. I had no idea. I had no sense, no feeling of that. I thank God for the skill of the cardiologist and also the diagnostic tools that are available in this day and age, to probe the inner workings of my physical heart to let me know what was actually going on. Actually, to let the doctor know what was going on, so that my life would be spared. Do you know what's going on in your spiritual heart? Are you aware of where you're really at spiritually? Jesus is presented in the New Testament as a physician of the soul. He said, "The healthy do not need a doctor, but the sick. I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

How does this physician of the soul, probe and diagnose our spiritual hearts? I think essential to our salvation is that we would want him to do so. That we will want to layout on his diagnostic table and say with Psalm 139, “Search me, oh God, and know my heart.’ Show me what's really going on in the core of my being.” How does he do that? He does it by the ministry of the word, by the power of the Spirit. He does it by every scripture, that's been inspired by the Holy Spirit. All of it has the ability to search us and probe us and show us our true condition. That's the attitude I want us to take as we come for the second week into the Parable of the Soils, for these soils represent different heart conditions, different people, and different heart conditions, as they hear the word.

The most significant moment of our lives is the moment we hear the Word of God. What do we do with it? What happens when we hear the scripture proclaimed? Our eternity depends on what we do with the Word of the Gospel. Whether we spend eternity in heaven or hell, all comes down to that one moment in our lives. I understand we have many such moments to hear the Word, but that singular moment of the Word coming in, what happens with the Word of God? I believe it's vital for us to understand each of these soils and to use each one, to say, "Search me, oh God, and know my heart." I think also just as a Christian parent, I think it's beneficial for parents who are raising their children in the nurture and admonish of the Lord from infancy up through the various stages of life, that you would prepare your kids. That they would be able to hear the Word of God. That they would know what's going on in their hearts. That they would understand how hostile the world is to our faith. For you as parents, as evangelists and disciples of your own kids, that you would understand these various soils and what could be happening in the hearts of your kids as they grow up, so that's in my mind as well. 

Let's walk through these for the second time.  I'm not going to read over the scripture because we're going to walk through it, soil by soil. Let's look at the first soil, the hardened path.  Look at verses 3-4, "A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path and the birds came and ate it up." Then the interpretation, verses 14-15, “the farmer sews the Word.” Some people are like seed along the path where the Word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the Word that was sown in them. This first soil is the normal response to the Word of God worldwide, every day, sadly. Every single day, the gospel message is preached. Paul summarizes it in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, "What I received, I passed on as a first importance, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures." That's the basic facts of the gospel and there's many other aspects beside. Every single day, that Word, the Word of the Gospel, is proclaimed all around the world by messengers. Millions of people hear that message and utterly reject it. They reject it out of hand. They reject it without hesitation. They reject it instantly. Jesus liken them to seed that falls on a hardened path, a path beaten down, day after day, by traffic and by the heat of the sun. That path is like concrete. We would understand it like a concrete sidewalk. The seed falls and bounces, no penetration at all. Because of their hard hearts, the people feel no fear at all concerning the coming judgment of God, the Judgment Day, that is most certainly coming. They have no concern about spending eternity in hell. These terrifying topics mean literally nothing to them. They hear the words of warning with arrogant confidence. I think about wicked King Jehoiakim, who heard the terrifying words of prophetic warning from the scroll of Jeremiah, his prophecies, and he cut the scroll, line by line, and burned it in a fire pot to warm his hands. Jeremiah 36:24 says, "The king and all his at attendants who heard all these words showed no fear, nor did they tear their clothes," a sign of repentance. 

Jesus highlights Satan's activity in all this. Satan's active in this. In the parable, the birds eating the seed represent Satan's activity, snatching away the word. The Gospel of Matthew uses that exact term, “When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.”  This is a seed sown along the path. This shows the power that Satan has over the hearts and minds of unbelievers. Satan seizes this Word. He removes it powerfully from their minds. They do not think on it at all. Perhaps they mock it. Perhaps they twist it or pervert it. Others blaspheme it and resolve to war against it, like Saul of Tarshish did before his conversion. He said in Acts 26:9, "I was convinced that I should do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth." But others, I think just disregard it. It's like, they'd never heard it. It's like the whole encounter never happened. Moments later, they don't think about it, take it to heart. This is part of the way that Satan seeks to thwart the advancing kingdom of God all over the world. 

Some years ago, I read to my kids a very powerful biography of Adoniram and Ann Judson, missionaries to Burma, called to the Golden Shore. There's a very powerful moment in that account. On January 27th, 1820 Adoniram Judson, missionary to Burma, and one of his fellow missionaries, James Coleman, traveled up the Irrawaddy River in Burma, to the Royal city of Ava, to secure an audience with the Emperor of Burma, King Bagyidaw. They went to ask for religious toleration so that they could preach the gospel in Burma, but Judson's deepest desire was to lead this man, this king, to faith in Christ. The Royal palace and Ava were overwhelmingly ornate. The hallway they went down was covered with gold leaf. The audience chamber, where they met with the king, covered with gold leaf. It was overwhelming and radiant. When the king entered the room, all of the Burmese people fell down on their faces as if a God had entered the room. Missionaries just knelt with respect, and Judson gave the king his petition for religious freedom in Burma so that they could preach the gospel unhindered. But then, he gave him a tract, explaining the gospel in culturally understandable, relevant words, good language, so he could understand it. The tract is still used apparently in Burma. As he hands him the tract he prays, "Oh Lord, have mercy on Burma. Have mercy on her king." Bagyidaw read the opening lines of the tract. "There is one being who exists eternally, who has exemption from sickness, old age and death. Who is, and who was, and who will be, without beginning and without end. Besides this, the true God, there is no other God." That's how the tract begins. King Bagyidaw read the first few lines and then just let his arm fall to the ground,  drop the tract out of his hand, stepped across the paper and out of the room to go review some troops. They never saw him again. There's no evidence that man ever came to faith in Christ. Satan does this kind of work, snatching away the seed, as soon as it's sown, all over the world. 

 I need to stop right now and ask all of you, what is happening in your heart concerning the gospel? You've heard the basic elements already this morning from me, that Christ died for our sins and that he was buried and that he was raised. Then if you have repentance and faith in him, your sins will be forgiven and you'll spend eternity in heaven, not in hell. Those are the basic facts. What are you doing with that? What's going on in your heart with the gospel?  I want to say something to Christians. I'm going to do this for each of the four soil types. Is Satan at work in the hearts of Christians too, in a similar pattern? That's a question. A possible interpretation of the soils is not just that this is permanently representing four different categories of people. I think that's standard interpretation. But also occasions as well, at times we hear the Word, and Satan is at work. In that case, Satan can snatch away the Word as though you never heard it on that particular day. Before you go on and say, I just don't think that's a proper hermeneutic or approach, let me ask you a question. As you look at the other soils, for example, the rocky soil in which persecution comes and the seeds don't respond well to the persecution, and wither and die. Or the other one about the danger of wealth, worldly wealth, and the danger of that crowding it out. Can you look at those soils and say, "Well, thank God. I don't have to worry about those. I know I'll be fine with persecution. I've got a good deep root system." Or, "I have no problem with wealth. I'm fine in that regard." Can you speak that kind of blessing on yourself, so you can exempt yourself until you get to the final soil type? I would say, no. Don't do that. "Search me, oh God, and know my heart." So I'm going to extend it to all of them. I think it cannot do us any harm.

What happens every time we hear the Word of God? Do we take it to heart or does Satan snatch away that Word, so that it has no effect on us. We are a distracted people, we can be inattentive.  Therefore I think we need to be aware of times in which the Word of God has made no impact on us at all. Evangelists and missionaries, pastors would do well to pray in light of this normative response to the gospel. Say, "Oh God, may the gospel work that we've done today, not be like the seed sown along that hardened path. May you take the word and plant it deep in people's hearts." Pray knowledgeably. Christian parents,  pray that your kids would not be hardened in their hearts toward the word of God. Pray knowledgeably. Pray for yourselves, "Oh God, that I would not develop a hardened heart that doesn't hear your word." 

The second soil type, the stony ground. Look at verse 5-6, "Some fell on rocky places where it did not have much soil, sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and they withered because they had no root." Then he interprets it in verse 16-17. "Others like seed sown on rocky places hear the word and at once, receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word they quickly fall away." Even though Satan is not mentioned in this soil by Jesus, I think we know in a broader teaching, Satan is very active in this matter of persecution around the world, bringing trouble on Christians because of the Word. He is active so we need to see his activity in this and in the next soil as well. Satan is battling against the Word of God, all over the world. In the stony ground, Satan keeps working on people after they've initially responded with great joy and passion, so that's noteworthy in this. The initial response is with joy, with passion. It's often surprising to people when they see individuals who at one time were extremely emotional and passionate about the Word of God, who are filled with joy and energy and commitment, who say all the right things and have the right facial expressions and the body language and the right emotions, but then who later renounce the faith and apostatize it. How could that even be? Is that even possible? 

We're enamored with passion, as like absolute evidence or proof that God's Word is at work in that person's life. We think on the other side of the equation, a more reserved, cold, calculating thinker who makes a verbal ascent to Christ, who speaks accurate doctrines, but who seems to lack passion, we're not surprised if that person later walking away. But if someone's face is lit up with joy, if their whole demeanor is crackling with passion, if they sing the songs loudly and they put their hands in the air, we think all that passion proves God is at work in that person's life. No doubt about it. Not so, necessarily. Maybe. Passion's a good thing. We need to have it. As a matter of fact, if you are passionless, you're not born again. I believe that, but just because there's an outward show doesn't mean necessarily that the person's regenerate, that they're born again. This stony ground here, it says, they sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. They had nowhere to go but up. Remember that stony ground talks about a sub-layer, sub-strata of impenetrable limestone or something like that. Not just individual rocks that the farmer can take out. This is almost like the hardened path of which we spoke. The rock itself is heated up with the sun. There's a lot of warmth and as I said, the seed has nowhere to go but up, and it goes up quickly, like a weed. They seem to make amazing progress in Christianity but the real test is about to come. The shallowness of this person, the shallowness is comprehensive. They're shallow in their doctrine, they're shallow in their conviction of sin, they're shallow in their relationship with Christ. Shallow. They have no root system. 

Then the sun comes up in the parable. Jesus says the plant lasts only a short time. He doesn't specify how long that is. That's kind of the terrifying point. He doesn't say after one day it withers and dies, or after a week it withers and dies. So if you make it past a week, you get to eight days, you're good. After a year, it withers and dies. If you get to a year plus one day, you're home free. He just says a short time. What's a short time to the Ancient of Days? I don't know, but at any rate he says a short time, but doesn't specify. It could even go on for years in this shallow pattern. But the individual has up to that point, never had to pay a price for his or her faith in Christ, and there's been no need to count the cost because life as a shallow Christian has been comfortable. But Jesus said, there's a time when trouble or persecution comes because of the Word. At that point, they quickly fall away.

This is a warning to comfortable Christians in America. Biblical Christianity and American culture are on a collision course. For many years, America, some in America, claimed that America's a Christian nation. It's nothing of the kind, never has been, but it is true that Christianity affected the national politics and government, and culture and media, and entertainment, perhaps debatably more than almost any other nation in history; a tremendous leavening effect in a positive way. That is true, so that Christianity in American culture've had somewhat of a comfortable relationship.

I believe I perceive this is coming to a screeching end. More and more, Christian convictions on sexuality, on gender, on the exclusivity of Christ, on the inherency of the Bible and many other vital theological topics, will be in direct opposition to American culture. Christians more and more will have to choose between their convictions and their jobs, or their friendships, or their extended family relationships, or their ability to participate in the public square, or to be accepted at certain colleges or programs or continue in those programs and on and on. It's going to get worse and worse. It's going to get hot.

So the warning to all of us is to develop a root system, as soon as you possibly can. Develop a root system in God's Word. Many verses speak to this. Colossians 2:6-7 says, "So then, just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith,” [that's Christian doctrine], “as you were taught, overflowing with thankfulness." Steep your mind and your heart in God's word. Develop a root system doctrinally. Develop a root system of intimacy with Christ, of closeness with Christ, of a love relationship with Jesus. Ephesians 3 speaks of that in verse 17-19 when Paul prays, "I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And that you would know that love, that surpasses knowledge. That you would be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." That's a root system of love that you would know how much Jesus loves you. Those two together will keep you in good stead when heat comes. Deep doctrine and deep, deep intimacy with Christ. Again, Christian parents, please get your kids ready to suffer. Don't presume that their experience in Christianity will be the same as what it's been for you over the last few decades. It's going to be harder. Prepare them to be counter-cultural on the issues I listed earlier. Get them rooted with biblical truth on those things. God's never changed his mind on any of them and he never will. Get them ready to suffer.

Soil number three, the thorny ground, verse 7, "Other seed fell among the thorns, which grew up and choked the plant so that they did not bear grain." Jesus interprets it in verse 18-19, "Still others, like the seed sown along the thorns, hear the word, but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things, come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful." Again, each of these soils represents heart conditions, as people hear the word of God. Here we get to the dangers of the world's allures and enticements. Whereas the stony ground here wilted at the world's abuse, the thorny ground here dies at the world's allures. Jesus lists the world's allures in sweeping terms; the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things. Why not commit those to memory friends. The worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things. All of these have to do with immediate worldly concerns. Some of them are positive things the person desires. Others are negative outcomes the person fears, but they all have to do with the comfort of life in this world. They have a vision for a comfortable, prosperous, successful life in this world, and they're worried that's not going to happen or they're running after that to make it happen.

The problem in this scenario is these weeds grow up and choke the Word, making it unfruitful. They block the sunlight so they don't get the needed sunlight, they steal the nutrients from the soil. Those weeds, they're greedy, and they take the nutrients from the soil so the plants don't get it. They steal the water and the moisture in similar fashion, so that the seed doesn't get what it needs to bear fruit. But the weeds do not bear fruit, but grow. This is one of the greatest dangers for us in prosperous America. This is a warning. I think I find it haunting. The worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things. What other things? Anything other than the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. Anything other than that. It could be good desires, like a single person wanting a spouse, or a childless couple wanting a child, or an unemployed person wanting a job, or a person beginning time in college, wanting a career. All of those are good things. There's nothing wrong with any of them but if they grow to idolatry proportions, they become the dominating theme of that person's life. Or it could be bad desires that the Bible condemns, such as wanting to get rich.  At any rate, the issue is these other things, these worries of this life and deceitfulness of wealth, grow up and choke the Word. They block out the Word so that the inner life with Christ withers and dies. 

 Specific warnings concerning wealth are found in 1 Timothy 6. These are Paul's warnings to rich Christians.  First of all, lesson one, seek godliness with contentment. 1 Timothy 6:6-8, "Godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing in the world and we can take nothing out of it but if we have food and clothing, we'll be content with that." That's advocating for keeping your life simple materially. Lesson number two, watch out for the love of money, which equals greed, which equals idolatry. 1 Timothy 6:9-10, "People who want to get rich, fall into a temptation, into a trap, into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin in destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." Is that not a perfect description of a thorny ground here? It's exactly what Jesus is talking about. I'll read it again, 1 Timothy 6, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” 

Lesson number three, do not put your trust in money, but in God. 1 Timothy 6:17, "Command those who are rich in this present world, not to be arrogant, prideful about their money, or to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." Paul's not advocating an aesthetic life in which you never enjoy any of the things we can enjoy in America, but  you're in danger. All of these things put us in danger if we're not careful, spiritually. Lesson number four, give away lots of money. 1 Timothy 6:18, "Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, to be generous and willing to share." The more you sacrificially give, the less money will have a grip over your heart. That I think, is the remedy. If you want to know what is the remedy to thorny ground, 1 Timothy 6 is your chapter. Christ also gives clear commands against the worries of this life in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6, “Do not worry saying, 'What shall we eat? Or what should we drink? Or what shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you as well." As a pastor, out of love for you, I would consider this to be one of the greatest dangers that faces our flock. We are wealthy Christians, we are, therefore, in danger, biblically. I'm not saying you can't be saved as a wealthy Christian. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying you're in danger. It's hard for rich people to be saved, Jesus said.

The book of Ezekiel says, "If I don't warn you, your blood is on my head." So I'm warning you to not be  thorny ground here. Is anything distracting you from the kingdom of God? What is distracting you from the kingdom of God? We are, by electronic devices, almost constantly immersed in the world. I was at a stoplight the other day and I looked around me and every stopped driver, thank God they were stopped, every stop driver was on their device. I'm not saying whether they stayed on their device once they hit the gas pedal, but all the stopped ones were on the device. All of the people crossing, the crosswalk were on devices. All of the people waiting on the sidewalk were on devices. Everyone's immersed all the time, like we're on a pic line, an IV line of the world, flowing into our blood vessels. Beware. Just look at this soil type and beware and don't speak a false blessing on yourself saying, "I don't need to worry about this. I know I'm not a thorny ground here." The worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things.

Soil number four, the good soil,  Mark 4:7,“Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop multiplying 30, 60, or even a hundred times." Jesus interprets it in verse 20, "Others like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it and produce a crop, 30, 60, or even a hundred times what was sown." This is pretty straightforward. The interpretation's almost exactly the same as the original statement. I think we know what this is, but we didn't know  what Luke tells us. The good soil, as I mentioned last week is clearly described Luke 8:15. "The seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart who hear the Word, retain it and by persevering, produce a crop." Hallelujah. A noble and good heart. This is quite stunning. Jesus himself said to the rich young ruler, "Why do you call me good? No one is good, but God alone." Jesus also said this in Mark 7:21-23, talking about the natural human heart, “For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thought, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly." All of these evils come from inside. That is from the heart and make a man unclean.” That's the native state of our heart. How then do any of us get a noble and good heart that accepts the Word, understands it and by perseverance, produces a crop? I'll tell you the answer to that - only by the sovereign power of God through the Holy Spirit. Amen. If you're a Christian today, Luke 8:15 says, "You have a noble and good heart." You should be in awe. You should fall down in thankfulness to God saying, "How did I get one of those?" How it happened is the Holy Spirit took out that stony heart of yours and put in a living heart to respond to the word of God.

What is the essential attribute of that noble and good heart?  I zero in on this one statement in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, "When you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but as it actually is the word of God, which is at work in you who believe."  That's what a noble and good heart looks like in this issue. When you hear the word, you know you're hearing God speaking to you, not a man. God is telling you this and you're taking it seriously. You know this is important for you. It says by persevering, you produce a crop. Perseverance really in the end, perseverance in the gospel, is the greatest single mark of being born again. You persevere year, after year, after year, in Christ and you produce a harvest. 

 Now, what is the harvest? What is the crop? The living and active word of God always produces fruit. That's what we're talking about here. Good fruit is the test of genuine Christianity. Jesus said  in Matthew 7:16, "By their fruit, you will recognize them." He also said, importantly, in John 15:2, "He cuts off every branch of me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."  Hold on to that because I'm going to circle back to that one more time. What is fruit? One pastor divided it into two categories; attitude fruit and action fruit. I like both. Both of those will be part of a true Christian life. What is attitude fruit? It's like heart fruit, stuff that's inside you. It begins with the transformation of our heart, so that we obey the law of God. We love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and we love our neighbors ourself. That's internal heart affections, flowing out into actions, a transformed heart that loves God and loves neighbor. That's fruit. Also, of course, you could go to the fruit of the spirit, Galatians 5:22, "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." You look at that. Do I see that cluster of virtues in me by the Holy Spirit, do I see that fruit inside me? Or again, the beatitudes, "Blessed are the spiritual beggars, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they'll be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they'll inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful for, they will be shown mercy. Blessed of the pure in heart for they will see God.” The Holy Spirit works this cluster of humble virtues in a genuinely converted person. They know that they're spiritual beggars. They have no chance to save themselves. They mourn over their sin. They are meek, essentially meek, not arrogant, boastful people. They hunger and thirst for righteousness. They yearn for it and they're merciful to other people. They see suffering in the world. They want to alleviate it, and they do seek to alleviate it, and they're pure in heart. They have a yearning for internal purity of holiness of heart. That's all attitude fruit.

Then there's action fruit, just good works, things you do in obedience to the commands of God, like evangelism. People you win to Christ, that you lead to Christ, will be fruit for you on Judgment Day. You'll have people that you can even call, like Paul does, the crown in which you will glory on that final day. So winning people to Christ is action fruit. Your Christian family, and a well-ordered family, a healthy marriage, godly Christian parenting; these things. Your prayer life is action fruit. Your financial life, actual money that you give to the poor and needs to the church. Your work life, your worship life, all of the works that you do in obedience to the commands of God. Going back to 1 Timothy 6:18, "Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds and generous and willing to share." Wouldn't you love that to characterizing you, rich in good deeds. It's not long before you look back to the 30, 60, a hundred times, what was sown to say, that sounds like rich in good deeds. That's what I want. 

Now why the variability of harvest? 30, 60, even a hundred times, what was sewn.  I mentioned last time, one interpreter said, "You need to understand the ancient near Eastern farmer would hope for at best five to seven fold return." This is bumper crop language, no matter what. Even if you're a 30, yield, it's astonishing. Why such big language? Because if you're a genuine Christian, the fruit that you do for the kingdom of God, will last for all eternity and it has the power to multiply in the lives of others, to have a ripple effect across generations. So it's huge, no matter what, but why are there some 30, but some double that 60? Others a hundred? It's just true that not all Christians are equally fruitful because not all Christians are equally faithful. Not all Christians are equally obedient, sacrificially obedient. I love church history and there are some brothers and sisters in Christ whose lives are worth studying centuries after they have gone, just because of how they lived. I think about George Whitfield. I have no idea how many sermons I preached. I can estimate, somewhere around a thousand maybe, in this pulpit, I guess.  George Whitfield preached 18,000 sermons in his life. I can't carry his shoes. I'll be in awe when I meet him in heaven. 18,000 to over 10 million hearers in colonial America, sometimes he preached over a dozen times in a single week. It's like two full sermons a day, seven days a week. Then there's George Müller. Some of you have a heart for foster kids or for adoption. He and his ministries cared for 10,000 orphans in his life. Then there's the Irish missionary, Amy Carmichael, who served in India for 55 years, without ever leaving the field, going on furlough, 55 years of caring for young Indian girls. Hudson Taylor took responsibility for reaching the inland regions of China with the gospel and oversaw a mission agency that placed 825 missionaries in 300 mission stations winning 25,000 converts by the time he died. Those are the heroes of the faith. We're going to honor them forever in heaven. My desire with this last category is to stimulate you to want to have more return in your Christian life, greater return. To give you a holy ambition, a fruitful ambition.

Going back now  to John 15:2 where I'll close. "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, so those branches wither and die and are burned." So those are... they're not Christians because there's no fruit. "Cuts off every branch of me that bears no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." That's that movement from 30 to 60. Lord, I want to be even more fruitful. What do you need, Lord, to cut out of my life so that I'm more fruitful? What do you need to cut out of my life, so that I'm even more fruitful? So that it doesn't draw off time, energy, mental, emotional resources out from the central call of God in my life?

Close with me in prayer. Lord, thank you for the power of this parable. It's a gateway parable. He said, "How will you understand any parable if you don't understand this one?" Help us to understand this powerful message. Help us to put it into practice. Help us to take the Word of God and bear maximum fruit with it. Every word, not just the gospel, but all the teachings that we get in the Gospel of Mark, in the New Testament throughout the Bible. Help us, oh Lord. Help us to bear fruit for your glory. In Jesus' name. Amen.

The four soils in the Parable of the Soils (the path, stony ground, rocky ground, and good soil) represent different responses to the Gospel.

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