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Luke 8:4-15 | Parables in Practice

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Listen to this week’s sermon, Parables In Practice preached by Rev. Benjamin Kandt from 8:4-15.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13x-O0xkSC-MSoneUXVORyzN3QuViSnv1/view

Welcome & Scripture Reading

Rev. Benjamin Kandt

Hello everyone. This is Pastor Benjamin. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City Orlando. At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer. For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.

Why Jesus Teaches In Parables

Joshua Esquivel

Good morning. Please join me in reading the Prayer of Illumination. Living God, help us to hear your word with open hearts so that we may truly understand and believe, and believing that we may follow in faithfulness and obedience through Christ our Lord. Amen. Our scripture today comes from Luke 8. And when a great crowd was gathering, and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it, and some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it, and some fell into good soil, and grew and yielded a hundredfold. And as he said these things, he called he called out, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And when his disciples asked him what that what this parable meant, he said, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. Now the parable is this the seed is the word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root. They believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. As for that, in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. This is God's word.

The Sower As Gateway To Understanding

Main Point: Tend Your Heart’s Garden

Soil One: The Trampled Heart

Healing Hardness: Grieve And Forgive

Soil Two: The Shallow Heart

Naming And Removing Hidden Rocks

Testing Reveals Real Roots

Soil Three: The Neglected Heart

The Lies And Lure Of Riches

Rev. Benjamin Kandt

Good morning. My name is Benjamin. I'm a pastor here with New City. And today through May, we will be in a series through Jesus' parables in the Gospel of Luke. And so buckle up, we're jumping in. Luke actually has 28 parables, more than any other gospel writer. Now, what is a parable? We see that word actually in verse 4 of our text. If you have a Bible or a device or the worship guide, you can get the text in front of you here. Verse 4 says, Jesus said in a parable. In a parable, simply the word means to throw alongside. Parabole, to throw alongside. So Jesus throws earthly stories alongside heavenly truths to help us see what we couldn't see before. That's what a parable is. If you look at verse 11, the seed is the word of God. You see seeds and words side by side, similarities and differences, drawing out to open our eyes to see things we wouldn't see on our own. Now, why parables though? Why not just speak plainly? Says most readers who get struggled through the gospels, and you're like, what is Jesus getting after in this? Well, Jesus answers that question in verse 10. It says, Jesus said, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. You see, parables both reveal and conceal. That's the point of a parable. That's why he tells them. Jesus knew if he spoke too directly, people would twist his words into what they already believed. One commentator puts it like this: mention the word Messiah, and they would picture a king on a horseback, not a carpenter on a cross. It would be like me trying to talk about God's heart for the immigrant or a nation's duty to protect their borders without someone categorizing me as left or right in our cultural moment. Jesus knew the temptation of the human heart to put what you say into mental models that are already existing, so he disrupted them through parables. That's what he did. He was disrupting this mental model of reality then and now. But now who gets to know the secrets of the kingdom of God to use verse 10's language? Well, parables conceal from the impatient and insincere, but they reveal to the sincere who persevere. Let me say that again. Parables conceal from the impatient and insincere, but parables reveal to the sincere who persevere. We see that. Look at verse 9. It says the disciples themselves had to ask, Jesus, what does this parable mean? So if you have to ask that question when you're reading the book, it's okay. It's actually expected. It's actually the response Jesus wants from you. Because it's not for super saints. Dr. Pennington last week reminded us that God reveals things to little children. And what do little children do, the little children do? They ask incessantly. And so come like a little child this semester. Ask Jesus, keep asking Jesus, what does this mean? Help me, Lord. And expect that He will reveal things to you supernaturally through the Spirit's illumination and in everyday, ordinary ways, like seeds and weeds growing in your backyard. He's speaking to you through these things. And so today we look at what Jesus calls the parable of the sower. The parable of the sower. And this is actually the gateway parable to all of the other parables. It stands at the head. You go through this gateway to get into the whole world of parables. Now I get that from Mark chapter 4, when Jesus tells this parable in the Gospel of Mark, and he says, This, do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? Okay, you hear that? Jesus is saying the parable of the sower is the most important parable to get if you're going to get the rest of the parables. So we stand here. This is a key, according to Jesus, that unlocks every other parable in the entire New Testament. It's important. And it's important because it answers a question that maybe the question I wrestle with the most about Christianity, and I bet you do too. Now, I don't mean the inerrancy of scripture, I don't mean the historicity of the resurrection, I mean the simplicity of why doesn't God just change people? Including, maybe starting especially with me. Like, why does it take so long? Why is there not what I would assume to be more fruit in my life born by the Word of God? That's what this parable seeks to address. Because the same seed goes out everywhere, but the condition of the heart makes all the difference. And so I want to put this chart up behind me as we explore this parable together. This will also be in the show notes on the podcast, so you can get a picture of it then. But this chart comes from this book called Secrets of a Fruitful Heart. I do this every now and again when uh I really want you to read a book, okay? Because leaders are readers and this is a little cheesy, but I'm willing to do it. Uh this book's fantastic. It's all about this one parable. And uh I actually know Bob Sorge, he's a fantastic human being, and I recommend this book to you. I have this copy. If somebody will come up to me, first come, first serve, and promise to read it in the next month, and then tell me what you think, it's yours. I have a copy for you. Okay? But this book essentially unpacks this parable for us in profound detail, and that's what this chart comes from. But I've got one main point, and then I want to, sub-points are the four soils. The main point I want to I want to speak to here is tend to the garden of your heart. Tend to the garden of your heart. And as we look at the text, I want to look at the four soils sequentially, starting with the first one, which is the trampled heart. Look with me at verse five. Look at verse five. It says this A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. Now look down at verse 12. The ones along the path are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, that's important, so that they may not believe and be saved. Okay, verse 11 said that the seed is the word of God. Verse 12 tells us that the soil is the human heart, right? Because the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts. All right, you got that? It's important for the whole parable. The seed is the word, the soil is the human heart. Now, farmers had paths through their fields that were meant for people to walk along. It prevented foot traffic from going across their fields. Uh, instead, people would walk on these footpaths. And the reality is that the path would become hardened over time by being trampled underfoot. You can imagine this. And so the path is too hard for the seed to root, so it becomes nothing more than bird food. Now, the trampled heart is a hard heart. Of all four soils, this is the only one that has no growth, no fruit, no even evidence that the seed took any kind of root whatsoever. A hard heart is the greatest travesty of a human's existence. There's nothing worse than that the condition of your heart would be hard towards God. And if that's true, I would want to ask and answer the question: well, what makes a heart hard? There's lots of reasons in scripture that the Bible gives, but let me just explore one. Trampling. Trampling. I'm using that metaphorically to talk about any time somebody does something that causes offense to you. That's what it means to have your heart trampled. And so here's here's a little biblical psychology. This is how it goes. Your heart feels trampled by someone in your life, maybe somebody close to you, maybe a stranger, maybe God, and that makes you angry. Now listen, anger can be a right response to reality. The Bible calls that righteous anger. But don't let the sun go down on your anger, even your righteous anger. The reason why is because anger left in your heart ages like milk left in your car. You see, anger sours the human heart and it turns it into bitterness, which leads to hardness. I get this from Ephesians 4, verses 26 and 27. Paul says this be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Why, Paul? Because you will give, you don't want to give any opportunity to the devil. I like the NIV's version better. It says, Do not give the devil a foothold. Because the devil will climb into your heart like Alex Honnold climbing Taipei 101. One foothold at a time. That's what anger in the heart does. It gives the devil a foothold. And what is a foothold? Undealt with anger. Undealt with anger. You see, a hard heart closes itself off towards God and towards other people, but it is an open invitation to the evil one. C.S. Lewis says it like this there is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan. There is no neutrality. Your heart is the most important thing for you to guard with all vigilance. You see, harbored anger turns into bitterness, which hardens your heart to God, but it invites demonic interference, which results in unbelief. Look again at verse 12. It says this the devil does his work so that they may not believe and be saved. If you remember, the Garden of Eden had an enemy. Well, listen, the Garden of your heart has an enemy. And the question is, what do I do if I find that my heart has been trampled? If I'm concerned I've got a hard heart, which let me just be clear, all four as all four of these soils apply to all of us all of the time. This isn't just about the first time you hear the gospel and have faith and are converted, as we say. It's not just that. It's right here, right now, as you sit under the Word of God. Right now, your heart's gonna respond in one of these four soils. One of these heart conditions is gonna be true of you. And so if you're here this morning going, I think I've got a trampled hard heart, what do I do? Two things. Grieve and forgive. Grieve and forgive. You see, some take the hyper-spiritual approach, which superficially forgives, but avoids entering into the depths of the pain that were caused by the trampling. And for you, I would just say the tears of grief will water the hard soil of your heart. But others of you take the cynical approach and you wallow in what has been done to you by others, but you never will release the debt through forgiveness. And I know forgiveness is hard. In fact, forgiveness will till up your hard heart like a sharp tool in the soil. And so listen, just switch the metaphor. Grieve and forgive are like two petals of a bicycle to metabolize the pain of a trampled heart. So Ephesians 4, that section I quoted about the devil having a foothold, ends like this: be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. So how do we get the motive to grieve and to forgive? We look at the unshockable mercy of God in Christ towards us, and it begins to tenderize our heart toward those who trample us. So that's the trampled heart. Let's look at the shallow heart. The shallow heart, verse six. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away because it had no moisture. Verse 13. And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy, but these have no root. They believe for a while, and in time of testing, fall away. Now I am the son of a son of a farmer all the way back to Germany. Okay? I'm the first generation can't to not grow up on a farm. So I wanted to do a little bit of research, which meant I had to call my dad and ask him some questions about how farming works, because all I've got is some raised beds with kale in it. I'm not bona fide enough to speak to this. But listen, in Michigan where I'm from, this thing happens in a farmer's field. When the snow melts after winter, rocks have surfaced everywhere. Rocks that were not there on the surface before winter. You see, the free thaw of winter and spring pushes buried stones to the surface. And farmers actually have rock-picking machines because they have to harvest the rocks before they can till the soil. Otherwise, they'll damage their plows. Listen, the stones are there all along, but they need to be revealed and removed. Come on, somebody. Anybody with me on this? That's right, thank you. Listen, remember the soil is your heart. And so, what are the rocks in your heart? That's the question. Simply put, the rocks are whatever hinders a hidden life with God. Whatever hinders a hidden life with God. Verse 13 says it like this: These have no root. No root. The rocky ground lacks depth. It doesn't allow a deep life with Christ, the kind of life that enables perseverance and endurance. So the question is, what makes your faith shallow? What makes it superficial? What causes a lack of depth? For some, it's it's shallow cultural Christianity. You show up here, but nobody would know you walk with Jesus the rest of your daily life. For others, it's little pockets of compromise that nobody would really know about, but they're there. Maybe little pet addictions that you know, but you don't do anything about. For some of you, it's actually a lack of theological depth. Like you've got the emotions, but they're not rooted in truth. That's actually the thing that's talked about here, right? They spring up with joy and then they wither away. Theological depth really matters for perseverance in the faith. So, what are the rocks that hinder your root development? That's the question. And I want to offer you both an encouragement and a challenge. You see, every one of us has rocks in the garden of our hearts, even now, right now. We don't know that they're there. There's these little pockets of sin, little pockets of compromise that we've yet to identify. And Jesus knows this. And Hebrews says he's not ashamed to call you his brother or sister. But what he's gonna do is in his great kindness, he's gonna walk with you through seasons like winter and spring. And as he walks with you through these seasons, he's taking you on a journey to reveal the rocks in your heart. But here's the challenge. When we see them, we have an obligation to deal with them and to remove them. We say things like, Yes, Lord, I see that stone. I see it. I confess it. I want it out. I'm gonna tell my community, I'm gonna turn back to you. Listen, if you've been walking in the, if you've been in the faith for a while, you know that this is true. You've recognized that there have been stones of compromise that have been surfaced in your life that have been revealed, and then you had to deal with them, and that doesn't stop as long as we live until we see Jesus face to face. And so I'm on an airplane last week preparing for this sermon, and I get to the stony heart, and I pause, and I just close my eyes, and I say, Lord, are there any rocks that are hindering depth in my hidden life with you? And immediately my conscience speaks to me. And it says, The way you use AI in your school. And I think, come on. Like everybody does it. And I actually even cite anthropic clawed AI in my bibliographies. It can't be that big of a deal. And the Lord was essentially like, hey, did you did you want it or no? Like, did you want to know what the rock was? Because I'll tell you. And so I did what is as good as writing it in stone. I put it in my to-do list to send an email to my professors, including the chair of our department, and to confess and tell them. And I CC'd Mike Hison, a pastor in our denomination, for added accountability. And I sent that email because I knew there is something hindering the depth of the word of God bearing fruit in my life, and I want it gone. I want it gone. And I sent that email and I thought, Lord, I don't know what the cost of this is gonna be. And then I thought, come what may, come what may, because I want depth, I want a hidden life in Christ, I want hundredfold fruitfulness, and I know that this is hindering that. We couldn't handle the depth of the true motivations of our hearts. The way I jokingly say it sometime is, yeah, my motives are mixed, but be glad they're mixed. They used to be not mixed, they used to be all bad. And so listen, God's plan for your life is that you'd become like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. Do you want that? Oh, I want that. I want that for you. And so God has only one way to provide that. You see, trees that have in endured seasons of drought, they've shown have duper deeper root systems. They put them down and down and down into the aquifer in order to draw life when there's drought above. They have this underlying source of sustenance. And so that's what God does in times of testing, as this text says here. Here's the sequence rocks prevent depth. The sun comes, which is testing or persecution or tribulation. Because you have no depth, that means there's no moisture. And the plant withers. And God, in his severe mercy, will allow times of testing into your life because testing is the great revealer. Do you have roots or not? And he loves you too much. He loves you too much because he wants to expose the superficialities of your faith in light of the realities of this world. Because now is the time to deal with hidden compromises that enable you or disable you rather from putting your roots deep into Christ. Do it now before the testing comes. The third soil is the neglected heart. Look at verse 7. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. Verse 14. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked. Someone say choked. Choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. I want you to look at the genius of Jesus here. He lists three thorns cares, pleasures, riches. Now look at how these relate together. Cares are what makes life hard. Riches, or I'm sorry, pleasures are what make life easy. Riches are what promises to cut your cares and give you plenty of pleasures. Do you see how these three relate? They're not bad in and of themselves, though. Politics and sick kids and loneliness and the feeling that you're drowning in your list of obligations with zero margin. Those are the cares of this life. The pleasures of this life are whatever helps you escape. So some of you, that's a beach house, it's vacations, it's binge watching Netflix. The pleasures of this life. And here's the both Matthew 13 and Mark 4 actually expand on the phrase from riches to use this phrase, the deceitfulness of riches. That matters. Riches are not bad, but they're also not neutral. They have a deceptive tendency. And so I texted one of our deaconesses and a guy in my circle, both of whom whom work in the marketplace, out in uh various workplaces, and I asked them this question. I said, Hey, in your workplace, what do you think the lies of riches are? And here's what they said. Number one, money gives me autonomy. If I have money, I don't need God for manna. If I don't have to submit to my limitation, I can supply my own needs. That's one of the deceptive lies of riches. Number two, money gives me status and identity. If I have money, I don't need God's blessing of affirmation over my life. I can get that from man, which is wildly insufficient, but sometimes more tangible than the smile of an unseen God. Lie three, once you get enough money, then you will have freedom from the difficulty of life. Lie four, I feel secure when I have a little bit more in the bank. Lie five, because I have this much money, I'm qualified as a man. These are some of the lies money speaks to you. So here's the question: what lies do you believe about money? Because as we live these lies, it will strangle the fruitfulness out of your life. Jesus is loving you here. He's loving you. These thorns are competing for your heart's attention and devotion. When we say tend to the garden of your heart, that root word tend is the same root word of attention. Cares and pleasures and riches distract you so much, they pull on your attention that it chokes out the fruitfulness of your life. And so again, these thorns aren't evil, but when we use them as distractions, they just we distract ourselves to death. And Jesus is inviting us to slow down, to simplify our lives around deep-rooted abiding in Him, so that we can breathe and not be choked by the thorns of cares, riches, and pleasures. Fourth and finally, the fruitful heart. Look at verse 8 with me. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold. Verse 15 As for that, in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. I said this earlier, but notice soil number one has no growth whatsoever. I said before the hard heart is the greatest danger, the greatest risk a human could have. But soils two and three actually have growth, but it doesn't last. And this helps us because I think that it gives us a glimpse into Jesus' definition of fruitfulness. In John 15, where our call to worship was from, or I'm sorry, our words of assurance, Jesus said this, that your fruit should remain. Fruit that remains is all that counts for Jesus. You see, according to Jesus, endurance is key here. Verse 15 says, Hold it fast, bear fruit with patience. This endurance peace, that fruit would remain, is the thing that causes it to count. So here's my shorthand definition for fruit in the Bible. Fruit is anything God works in you or through you that lasts forever. So it might be the fruit of the Spirit. That's what God works in you, character formation. It might be the fruit of ministry and ways in which you serve and love your neighbors. That would be external fruit. God works that through you, but it has to last forever for it to count as real kingdom fruit. Bob Sorgi put it like this. For it to be kingdom fruit, it has to have eternal implications. And then he lists the kind of fruit that lasts. This is just some of it, it's not all of it. Friendship with Jesus, godly character, building up the church, leading people to Christ, financial generosity, obedience to Jesus, providing for your household, discipling your children, enduring persecution, praising God. And I would add a cup of cold water offered in Jesus' name. Which I think is a subset of culture making, which we won't get into because it's a whole nother sermon. But listen, the Spirit doesn't waste his breath. If you look at the text, as the sower sowed, verse 5, some fell along the path, verse 6, some fell on the rock, verse 7, some fell among the thorns. And verse 8, some fell into good soil. You see the difference? The good soil is simply a receptive heart. That's all it is. It's a receptive heart, a receptive heart that's been cultivated by dealing with the birds, the rocks, and the thorns. So Jesus is giving us helpfulness here. He's saying, How do you become the fourth soil? Deal with the first three problems in those soils, and your heart will be receptive. You see, this is why a seed in soil wants to do what it does, bear fruit. So it's actually less about doing something and more about removing certain things that are obstacles to the fruitfulness of the seed. That's what Jesus is trying to get at here. That's why we say here at New City that communion with God is receiving and responding, because a receptive and a responsive heart before God is the greatest thing you could aspire towards. And so, this receptivity of the heart, if if the garden of your heart is cultivated properly, then you can have 30, 60, and 100fold fruitfulness in your life. I'm using Mark 4, verses 20, uh to describe what Jesus says elsewhere. Here he just talks about a hundredfold. Now, let me make that plain. Bob Sorge, again, argues that these are not categories, but a spectrum. I actually really like this. So some of us in this room are 12% fruitful. And Jesus is like, you want to see what 13 would look like? That's that's the point of this parable. It's that 100%, hundredfold fruitfulness is on offer. But what gets in the way are the birds, the rocks, and the thorns. And so some of you in this room are like, 73% fruitful. And Jesus is like, hey, 75's amazing. Wait till you get there. Just deal with that thorn. You've kind of learned to comfort too much in the pleasures of life. And I'm just inviting you to say, hey, here you go, Jesus, you can have this. I want more fruitfulness. I want my life to matter beyond death. I want fruit that remains. And so I hope you hear that as invitational, not as oppressive. I hope you hear that as, hey, wherever you are, Jesus is just inviting you 1% more. And it might take a lifetime. And that's okay. He's patient. Oh, he's abundantly patient. He wouldn't commend patience in the fruitful good soil if he wasn't himself a patient sower. Which brings us to that question: who is the sower? You see, we've talked about how the sower scatters seed, which is the word of God, and it falls on four different types of ground, which is the condition of the human heart. But almost all commentators, everybody that I read at least, agreed that the sower is Jesus. And that Jesus is still sowing the seed of the kingdom wherever he goes. He's walking among us this morning and he's sowing the seed of the kingdom. He's doing it right now. And in verse 8, you get the heart cry of Jesus. This is what he says. As Jesus said these things, he called out. He called out he who has ears to hear, let him hear. When you read the Gospels, pay attention to what stirs up Jesus. There's a few things, but one of those things that stirs him up is ears to hear. This is quintessential Jesus. This is his trademark. This is one of his signature moves. He says it seven times in the gospel, ears to hear. And then he repeats it to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3. Ears to hear. That's what he's about. That means 14 times in the New Testament, Jesus is saying, I'm about ears that can hear. The four heart responses in the parable depend entirely upon how the word was heard. If you look at verse 12, 13, 14, and 15, the word hear is in each of those verses. Why is hearing such a big deal to Jesus? Well, because Christianity is not primarily about what you do, but what's been done for you. You see, Christianity is about this sower who was himself sown. Jesus was willing to be planted in the ground through his death on a cross, but then he rose again and bears 100x fruitfulness in resurrection power in his lives and in the lives of all who remain in him. You see, he offers this fruitfulness to all who will simply receive and remain connected to him. What has the first importance in Christianity? It's not good advice, it's good news. And how do you receive good news? Do you earn it? Do you deserve it? Do you take hold of it? Do you work for it? No, you simply hear it and believe it. Those who have ears to hear. And so whether someone's heart is fruitful or not depends entirely upon the hearing of the word. Everything in this parable comes down to helping you hear better. Verse 12, it says that the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved, because the devil knows the Bible. He's read Romans 10, 17 that says, Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. You see, you cannot tend to the garden of your heart unless God has given you a new heart. Jesus' heart was punctured on the cross in order to flow forth to you, giving you a new heart. There are only two people in the world, only two types of people, those who have a heart of stone and those who have a heart of flesh, a tender heart. And the way you go from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh is divine heart transplant. It's not effort, it's not earning, it's God's initiative on your behalf. It's the only hope that we have. You need God to sovereignly do a heart transplant, which I have good news for you, is the very promise of the new covenant. Ezekiel 36 puts it like this: and I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. You see, God expects a receptive heart and then he gives what he expects. He gives the very thing he expects. And so this promise of the new covenant is that God himself will give you a tender, receptive, responsive heart before him. And some of you need that this morning. Some of you are here and you don't know Jesus. Your heart has been hard towards God your entire life, and he's offering to you right now the promise of the new covenant. Come to Jesus for a new heart. But others of you, man, you've had that heart transplant, but it's been trampled, shallow, and neglected. And you failed to tend the garden of your heart, and so it has birds and rocks and thorns. But here's the good news: this sower was sown. If Jesus was buried like a seed and rose to bear resurrection life, if his heart was punctured to give you a new heart, he can and will make the trampled soil tender, the shallow soil deep, and the neglected soil fruitful once again. Will you let him? Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we praise you, the great sower. We look to you with open eyes and open ears. Holy Spirit, would you open our ears? Give us ears that can hear, that can receive. I pray against the evil one in our midst. I pray against the demonic interference whenever the word of the kingdom is proclaimed. In Jesus' name, I bind the evil one who would love to steal like a bird the seed from the hearts of the people in this room. I pray against the rocks and the thorns that choke out and hinder root development. Jesus, would you give us honest hearts, open hearts, receptive hearts that bear fruit with patience over the long haul, so that we have that you appointed us that we might bear fruit and that that fruit should remain. Help us, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.