Skunks Don’t Like to Be Squeezed
“That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake.
2 Such large CROWDS gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it,
while all the people stood on the shore.
3 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.
5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much SOIL.
It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow.
6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.
7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.
8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
10 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”
11 He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you,
but not to them.
12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance.
Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.
13 This is why I speak to them in parables:
“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn,
and I would heal them.’[a]
16 But blessed are your eyes because they see,
and your ears because they hear.
17 For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.
18 “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means:
19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it,
the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
20 The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 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.
22 The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word,
but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.
23 But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it.
This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
Matthew 13:1-20
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Intro: Mother’s Day sermons are notoriously awful.
With perhaps the exception of a few sermons written by women pastors who are actually mothers.
For the most part us men, try as hard as we may, we just don’t get what it means to be a mother.
Often women leave worship on Mother’s day feeling trivialized by the smug tribe
That mom’s have five hands, one to cook, one to clean, one to wipe your nose, two to hold you with.
Or, mom’s have three eyes, two in front and one in the back to watch over you at all times…
On and on the list goes until some women feel nauseous or become distracted
thinking about what kind of fashion would a dress look like with five arm holes.
Seriously? How can this sermon be any different?
In the Methodist church of our mothers or perhaps grandmothers,
the opportunity to get saved most often came only once a year at the annual Revival Meeting.
Today we have barely heard of the word revival in the church.
Skilled evangelists came to preach loaded sermons with all kinds of bait to reel in the least, the last and the lost.
It was common for people who had never heard that type of fiery sermons before to come
And so usually there were people who got saved.
But once the worship services returned to the same previous routine and style of preaching
Many of those who just got saved fell away
Some never returned to church
Some returned year after year and got saved over and over again each time a revivalist came.
Some came to church but never really understood much about what it means to live as a true believer
But some stayed
and some worshipped in their hearts
and some truly accepted God’s message
and have been a guide and example to you their children and many others around them.
I did not come here today to entertain.
I did not come here today to perform.
I did not come here today to argue.
I DID COME HERE TODAY TO PROCLAIM
I have come to make an announcement,
Anyone who is willing to hear should listen and understand.
I’ve come to make an announcement and it is this, YOU NEED JESUS TO SAVE YOU!
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YOUR NEED FOR SALVATION IS THE MESSAGE OF THE BIBLE.
It is the life force of our faith;
It is center of Christianity.
The experience of Jesus as Savior is the basis from which the Christian movement sprang up.
Wesley talked about it all the time.
Everybody knows its meaning
until you are asked to explain it, and then all of us stutter and stumble and wonder.
What does it really mean to be saved?
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SALVATION IS PERSONAL SURVIVAL.
If you are drowning in a swimming pool and a lifeguard pulls you out; you have been saved.
When Paul and Silas were spending the night in a Philippian jail,
an earthquake shook the doors open and the chains off their feet.
The jailer, realizing his prisoners had escaped
And that meant certain death for him, he drew his sword to commit suicide.
When Paul and Silas stopped him, the jailer asked, “What must I do to be saved?”
He was not interested in a theological discussion,
He was not interested in who begat who or some other bible trivia
All he was interested in was survival.
How can I get out of here alive?
The answer is—BY SALVATION.
It’s Mother’s Day so let me make a true confession.
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There is a question in the ritual of Baptism that is asks
“Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness (+SLIDE+)
Reject the evil powers of this world and repent of your sin?”
You may not have given that question much thought.
Some of you may not have even been asked this question.
We are so eager to collect them and dunk them and make the members
That we don’t do a very good job sometimes of explaining what membership in the body of Christ really means.
So, a lot of that rests upon the pastor and class teachers.
So when someone who is a Christian doesn’t act very much like a Christian
There is lot of responsibility to go around.
Everyone is supposed to be conducting ourselves
so as to teach and show how Christ would handle struggle, temptation, and conflict.
There is an old saying…
You May be the only Bible some people read…
You may be the only Jesus some people see…
John Wesley, in his wisdom, says,
“When we are born in the Spirit,
we see with new eyes,
hear with new ears,
believe with new minds,
love with new hearts.
We begin to live and move and experience our being from a whole different perspective.
We are alive in Christ. Salvation is not pie in the sky; it’s life down here.”
As we travel the road to become more like Jesus,
we run into three main obstacles: the world, the flesh, and the devil.
By “world,” I mean the negative human influences and the corrupt, unregenerate culture around us.
By “flesh,” I mean our own human tendency toward sin.
And by “devil,” I mean Satan himself as well as demons.
You might be wondering why is he talking about
Rejecting “evil powers of this world.”
Repent. It’s been said that each of us is our own worst enemy.
This makes sense to me, because a lot of times we don’t even need an outside influence to make us sin
—we manage to find ways to sin pretty good own our own.
Renounce. This is a strong word.
It means something along the lines of disavow, disown, forsake, turn you back on.
Why are you talking about all this kinds of stuff on Mother’s Day?
Because (+SLIDE+)
MAMA WOULD WANT YOU TO GET SAVED
Our war with evil is happening on three fronts:
between our spiritual nature and our corrupt one,
between us and the world, and
between us and spiritual forces of wickedness.
We can’t focus on only one front and be effective.
When you become a MAMA….
And you are lying awake at night wondering if your child is ok.
Are they going to make a choice that could get them into trouble?
Will they follow your advice?
Have you done everything in your power to teach them right from wrong?
Parents understand the need for salvation; survival is a daily challenge.
So with kids to raise, bills to pay, jobs to keep, we need to pray,
Lord, help me make it through the night.
Lord, would you give me a little assistance through the day tomorrow.
Salvation is a matter of survival.
(+SLIDE+)
In the parable, the farmer throws the seed everywhere,
not knowing in advance where it may take root and sprout.
That may seem like a poor way to plant seeds.
Just scatter them here and there with no thought about where they fall.
You may be thinking, in Jesus day that’s the way they planted.
They didn’t have plows like we do today.
Oh, bologna.
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Deuteronomy 22:10 says thou shalt not plow with an ox and donkey together.
Due to the difference in size and strength between an ox and donkey
You will kill the donkey if you had the two yoked together.
They knew about planting seed and plowing fields a thousand years before Jesus.
So if this parable is not about farming what is it about?
Jesus often disguised his sermons using parables
He was not hiding the truth from those who sincerely wanted to know it
Because people who truly seek to find God will begin to understand spiritual truth.
While others in the world
who pervert and change and distort spiritual truth will not understand the stories meaning.
This allows Jesus to give spiritual food to those who are spiritually hungry
While preventing his enemies from trapping him sooner than when he was ready
Otherwise they might have taken him to the cross to be crucified before he had given instructions to the disciples and before he had done all he needed to do to fulfill the prophecy of Himself as Messiah.
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12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance.
Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.
This phrase means that you are responsible to use what God has given you.
(This does not always happen in this life. But is also referring to the judgment still to come.)
When people reject Jesus, because of the hardness and evil in their heart
Even what little understanding that they have is taken away from them. (+SLIDE+)
That is a prophetic and sobering thought in the world and culture we live in today.
Tracey Stewart tell about her life and that of her husband—pro golfer Payne Stewart.
As Tracey describes the up-and- down life of a pro golfer, she says,
“We began to sense a need for a stronger religious foundation in our home.
We were raised in the faith,
but being in a different city every week, it was difficult
and we wanted our children to be grounded in the faith, as well, so we started attending church regularly.
As a family, we began learning the scriptures our children brought home from Sunday school.
The giant faith within began to be awakened again in our souls.
With new energy Payne and I wanted to live the Christian life, not just talk about it.”
You can be born again.
You can live, not merely survive.
You can put God first.
You and your house can serve the Lord.
SALVATION IS BLESSED ASSURANCE
Another young mother enrolled in a Bible study where many of her questions about God were answered.
At a worship service she responded to the invitation,
made a profession of faith and accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior.
She sang all the way home.
She walked in the door,
She hugged her husband and whispered in his ear,
“Honey, I’ve been saved.”
She was the happiest she had ever been in her whole life.
A few weeks later, she fell and broke her leg.
Unable to get around the house,
work piled up,
the kids fought constantly,
and the young mother grew more discouraged by the day.
She went from the height of a new found experience to the depth of every-day problems.
Before long, she doubted her religious experience was authentic at all.
Be careful this can happened to you!
Do you know what that is like???
—to have some wonderful religious experience somewhere
and then have to work it out in the nitty-gritty and routines?
The world we live in is messy.
There is evil and mean spirited people who would rejoice to see you fall.
If you tell some people you know that you got saved…,
They will offer you drugs,
They will tempt you to cheat.
They will remind you of every mistake you have ever made and say what kind of Christian are you?
We live in a very unfriendly world for Christians.
John Wesley lived and preached the doctrine of Christian Assurance.
He based his belief on
Romans 8:16. “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirits that we are the children of God.”
You know longer have to be cowering and fearful.
God has already given us the gift of His Son Jesus.
When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour
We also receive the gift of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is what give you the strength and power to live and overcome the things of this world.
Do you have the Holy Spirit in your life today?
Mama would want you to get saved
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MAMA WOULD WANT YOU TO BRING UP YOUR CHILDREN IN CHURCH
This Parable of the Sower is all about how Faith produces fruit.
“the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it.
This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” Verse 23
Where better to start making Christian than in your own home
With you own children
With your own family.
MAMA you are designed and made to raise, teach and protect your children.
Think about it from the time a child is one year old and starting to walk you are teaching them
“Hot” don’t touch.
“No” that’s not good for you.
“Eat” you are feeding them puree pea and carrots, vegetable…,
If becoming a Christian were as easy as spelling “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”
We would all be teaching our children the ABC until they could spell it.
But we start with a three letter word that everyone needs to be taught about
It is S-I-N. (+SLIDE+)
This word is more than just “hot and no”
This word is more than just right and wrong.
This word S-I-N is about Adam and God in the Garden.
Genesis 3 God shows up and Adam runs and hides behind a tree.
Can he see me?
God asks Adam…, “Where were you…”
Adam… well…, I…, Okay…, So…, Alright…, Wait…, Okay…, See…,
What happened was…,
You came…, and then…,
And I…,
Well I hid because…, cause I was… naked. (+SLIDE+)
And then probably the greatest question in the whole bible…
“Adam. Who told you…., you were naked?”
Cause you been naked the whole time.
You ate from the Tree didn’t you.
Sin enters in.
Guilt and shame.
So this violation of Trust.
This violation of relationship
This disobedience has happened.
Yes, God loves all people
And we use the term “unconditional love”
Yet “unconditional love” means God still loves you.
But he loves you enough not to leave you ruined, damaged, broken, lost and separated because of sin.
He loves you unconditionally.
But he loves you enough not to leave you the way you are.
Which is hiding, denying and lost because of sin.
So, God sent Christ who became flesh and dwelt among us. John 1:14
The death of Jesus Christ was His sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sins.
Think about how much God loves you.
That Jesus died on the cross and purchased our forgiveness.
He purchased a place in Heaven for us.
So, the way to be saved is
• Admit you have sinned
• Believe that Jesus Christ died for you on the cross and rose from the grave.
• Commit your life to living for Jesus Christ.
Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
Motherhood is not a hobby; it is a calling from God.
Well I guess it is time to explain the title of todays sermon.
Skunks Don’t Like to Be Squeezed
A mother came home one afternoon from the grocery store and walked into her house
everything looked pretty much the same, though it was a little bit quieter than usual.
She looked in living room
and in the middle of the floor were her two children and three neighborhood kids
The children were sitting in a circle
The little darlings were exceedingly quiet, doing something, with something in the middle of a circle.
So she put down the sacks of groceries and walked over to take a closer look
What she saw was is the middle of the circle of children were 5 of the cutest skunks you can imagine.
The terrified mother instantly screamed and said, “Run children, run!
Each child umped up grabbed a skunk and ran, in 5 different directions.
But as each child grabbed their respective skunk they each one gave their skunk a squeeze!
“Skunks don’t like to be squeezed!”
MAMA? Are there things you need to teach your children that you haven’t taught them yet?
Maybe it is time to sit down with them and teach them about the skunks that are in the world.
Let me ask you another question.
Are there things that your MAMA taught you that you haven’t done very well at doing?
(+SLIDE+)
19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it,
the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
(+SLIDE+)
20 The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 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.
(+SLIDE+)
22 The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word,
but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.
(+SLIDE+)
23 But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it.
This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
Matthew 13:1-20
