Does Your Heart Listen

Does Your Heart Listen?

9:30 3/25/93 Text Matthew 13:1-22 Psalm 1 Hebrews 12:1-12

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RICK

How is it that two people can come hear the same preacher,

sit on the same pew, and listen to the same message each week,

yet one of them grows by maturing in his her faith, learns to

walk in the Spirit, and have a productive fruitful life for

Christ, and the other shows no sign of growth. Why is it that

after listening to four years of our sermons, some of us are no

further along in our Biblical knowledge or spiritual growth than

we were four years ago. Could it be people, that the way we lis

tens, determines who we grow?

TOBY

Saints, God wants us to listen to Him, so that we may be set

free by His truth, and that we might communicate that truth to

others so that their lives and our lives might be changed. Andre

Crouch wrote a song, with the words, "Lord we need to hear from

You. We need a word from You. If we don’t hear from You, what

will we do?. Wanting you more each day, Show us your own perfect

way. There is no other we that we can live." My friends, if we

are going to hear God, then we must prepare to listen.

RICK

You may say, I listen all the time, but I don’t hear God.

Chances are we are listening in the wrong places. The greatest

listening device we have for hearing from God comes not through

our ears, but rather our eyes and our hearts. If our eyes are

not opened to the word of God in the Scriptures, and our hearts

are not set on loving God with all our being, it does not matter

how clearly or loudly God speaks, we won’t hear.

7 3 ��

TOBY

Our text this morning is found in Matthew chapter 13. If

this parable Jesus is going to describe 4 kinds of soil which

receive seeds. The four kinds of soil represent the four kinds

of hearts that hear the word of God. The seed represents the

word of God itself. Let’s pick up the story together in chapter

13. Jesus has a large crowd around him, and he’s in a boat teach

ing them. Let’s look at verse 3 and 4. "Then he told them many

things in parables, saying: "A farmer went out to sow his seed.

{4} As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and

the birds came and ate it up."

RICK

The farmer is going along sowing seeds by throwing them out

of bag and letting them land where they may. The first group of

seeds have a less than productive fate. Since the ground is hard

along the path with so many people walking on it, the seed never

gets past the surface. The birds come and eat it up. Jesus

gives the explanation of the path and the birds in verse 19. He

says "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 the seed sown along the path."

TOBY

There are two kinds of people in this predicament. There is

the person who comes to church. He or she has already decided,

"I’m not interested in hearing anything from God, the preacher or

anyone else. I know what I believe and that’s enough for me."

Saints, its dangerous to hear the truth of the Word of God and

7 3 ��make no response. Each time one does it, it becomes a little

harder for the person to develop a relationship to Jesus Christ.

RICK

The second group of persons in this predicament is those who

hear from God and intend to do something about it, but immediate

ly they forget what it was they were intending to do. The devil

convinces the person, oh there’s no need to do anything about

that, besides you’ve got plenty of time. That instant in what we

know is the right thing to do or to say, we let it go by because

we allowed it to be snatched away from us.

TOBY

When we allow ourselves to be calloused to the Word of God,

to God’s truths, then we give open opportunity to Satan to steal

away these precious truths. The abiding danger here is that

after ignoring the truths which God shares with us through many

avenues, that when we come upon hard times, we won’t be able to

handle or deal with the hardships properly. God has a different

attitude for us to possess when it comes to the Scriptures.

Instead of letting the devil steal it, we are commanded in Colos