The Seed and the Soils

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. We've linked open in the Bibles with me to the book of Mark Chapter 4. Mark Chapter 4, you'll find that on page 885 in your Pew Bibles, Mark Chapter 4. As we continue to work our way through the Gospel of Mark, we found ourselves in the previous section looking at all sorts of different responses to Jesus from people with faith, as there is nothing more than to be healed and to sit at Jesus' feet. and also even the hearts of the scribes, who would want nothing more than to destroy Jesus' very life. And now we come to a section in the book of Mark where we have a series of different teachings from our Lord. Let's go now, reading God's word, Mark chapter four, beginning at verse one.

And again, he began to teach by the sea, and a great multitude was gathered to him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole multitude was on the land facing the sea. Then he taught them many things by parables and said to them in his teaching, Listen, behold, the sower went out to sow, and it happened as he sowed that some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds of the air came and devoured it.

Some fell on stony ground where it did not have much earth. And immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, it was scorched, and because it had no root, it withered away. And some seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. But other seed fell on good ground, and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased in produce, some 30 fold, some 60 fold, And he said to them, He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

But when he was alone, those around him, with the twelve, asked him about the parable. And he said to them, To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. But to those who are outside, all things come in parables, so that seeing they may see and not perceive. And hearing they may hear and not understand, lest they should turn in their sins, be forgiven them. And he said to them, do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?

The sower sows the word. And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the Word that was sown in their hearts. These, likewise, are the ones sown on stony ground. When they hear the Word immediately, they receive it with gladness. And they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises before the Word is saved, Immediately they stumble. Now these are the ones sown among the thorns.

They are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. But these are the ones sown on the ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, and some a hundred." That's a portion of the reading of God's word.

Prayer for Illumination

Brothers and sisters, grass withers, and the flower will fade. Word of our God endures. Let's pray. Father, we need you this morning. We have read your word and we pray that your spirit might have been with us as we read it. We plead with you now, Father, that your spirit would be with us in the preaching of the word. We plead with you, God, that you would have eyes to see, ears to hear, that we would turn and be forgiven. In Jesus' name, amen.

Sermon

Well, I learned a valuable lesson last year. I'm not a very good gardener. If you drove by our house last year, you would not have seen a garden. You would have seen a weed patch protected from deer by an electric fence. You would have seen just stuff growing up to, I mean, it was like waist high, chest high. I had to go in there with a big lawn mower and just ride over all of it and just say, it's a total loss.

And as I thought about that garden, which was not a garden, plants that I had spent money for and put in the ground that bore no fruit, Realizing this was a metaphor for my own life. That things can get out of control. That if we just go on autopilot and don't tend to our lives, tend to our hearts, things can go utterly awry.

So this morning as we look at this parable from the book of Mark, Jesus is specifically teaching us about the kingdom of God and all sorts of people who come and hear his teaching. And the call for us this morning is we need to survey our own hearts. We need to take heed of the garden of our own souls and ask ourselves, what type of soil are we? How has the seed found a home in our own soul? And I pray that we might walk away from here this morning loving Christ more and bearing good fruit. So first, we need to look at the setting in verses one and two.

What's going on in this section? Verses one and two, Jesus again began to teach by the sea. That's the Sea of Galilee. And a great multitude was gathered to him. This is nothing new for Mark. People keep pressing in and crowding in on Jesus. But this time it's a little bit different. There's so many people that Jesus says, boys, we're gonna go out into the boat.

And in the boat, Jesus takes the position of an authority figure, of the teacher. And he sits down on the boat. in the calm waters of the Sea of Galilee. And as he's there, most likely, with the hills of Capernaum right behind him, there's a natural amphitheater as he goes and he teaches them in a series of parables. And Mark chapter four begins these series of parables that Mark wants us to remember, wants us to think about. And so the teacher is here opening up with authority and he's preaching. And all sorts of people have come to hear him. As I said before, I read the passage There were people there who were on the scribes.

They didn't want to actually believe Jesus. They wanted to stop him and to kill him. There were other people there who just wanted to be healed. They weren't actually there because they loved Jesus. They just wanted what they could get from him. And then there were other people who truly wanted to learn from him, wanted to sit with him, wanted to follow him.

So Jesus, as he's speaking to this mixed multitude, this number of people sitting on the hills and seas, preaching from his boat in the water, he gives this parable in verses 3-9 to Sober. And as Sober goes out, he's broadcasting his seed. Now, I remember a few years ago I was with one of the farmers, and we were in his planter, and as I was sitting in the buddy seat, which he tells me is not a buddy seat, it's an instructor seat, but in the instructor seat of the tractor, he was drilling and planting his seed, and the GPS could tell him every single place the seed went through.

Well, that's not how they sowed seed back in ancient Israel. See, they would walk along the way, and they would have a basket or a sack, and they would stick their hand into this basket or sack of seed, and they would broadcast it out. And they didn't have 80 acres like we have, or larger acres than that. These were small family plots. Every single square foot was extremely valuable. And so you filled the entire area with seed.

I need you to understand that seed is especially valuable during this time. I remember a story that, this is often something that happens in places like Africa, as they have to make food, but you have this problem that the food you make also comes from the seeds you plant. And so as you might be going out and planting sorghum or some other type of grain, you go out a child would go to the shed, and they'll find a sack, and that sack is full of seed. And you have to understand that at the seed time, all the food that's been eaten is gone. So often our African brothers will come in and they'll tell the missionaries, my son came in and asked if we could eat what was left of the grain.

You have to tell them no. And we needed that to be able to sow for next year. This seed is valuable. And people are hungering for this, and there's this delayed gratification. This is why in the Psalms it says that they're gonna be blessed for those who sow in tears.

You're planting not knowing if the harvest is gonna come, and what you're planting is a food that you could be eating today. So on these small plots of land, as the sower goes out broadcasting the seed, throwing it all over his small plot of land that he would own, it's going to land on different types of soils. In the first part, it talks about where it's going to land along the path. Behold, a sower went out to sow and it happened as he sowed that some seed fell by the wayside. This is verse four or so. It follows, a better translation there would be along the path. It doesn't mean that he's literally walking to the path and he's throwing it on the path, but it's as he's throwing it, there's rough ground.

Now, this is one of the things I don't like about living in the country. Can one of you tell me where my yard is and where the gravel road starts? Because there are times when the greater hazard comes by, I don't know if I'm supposed to mow the rocks that are next to the grass, because there's grass in it, or do I just let it grow and let the sun kill it? I don't know what I'm supposed to do. But the reality is that there's, neither does a farmer when there's a path walking next to their field.

They're broadcasting in some of the seed. It's natural to fall along that path on this side, that path. But see, when you throw out seed onto dry ground, God loves the birds making out. Is it common? Jesus is telling them these common sense things that farmers and agricultural people would know. The birds come and they eat it up. And then verse five, some of it falls along the rock soil. Now this is not uncommon. I hope you'll just bear with me a little bit. I need to give you a little bit of agricultural background. We need some flavor of this to understand the parable that Jesus is going to explain in the second half here.

The ground of Israel, especially up in Galilee, is often a basalt-like ground. It's got these rocky soil. And so farmers would go out as they were plowing, they would pick up the rocks and throw them to the edge in the road. They would try to get these rocks out. But inevitably, you're always going to have some rocks in your field. I'm absolutely amazed by how few rocks you all have here in your ground in Iran. It's absolutely incredible. But not so in Israel. There's rocks everywhere.

So as he's broadcasting the soil, what would happen is you have three different really rainy cycles in Israel. You have October to November, and that's the early rains, and that's when you would start sowing your seed. And then when what we would call the winter comes, December through January, they would get their winter rains. And then from February to March, you would get the latter rains. And so the plants, these seeds that would go into the rocky soil, they would have plenty of rain. And so they would sprout up, they would grow quickly. But what would happen in April as the barley harvest started? The rain stopped. And now comes drought season. No more rain, only sun.

And as these plants that would grow in the rocks didn't have any root, the sun would naturally come up for days upon days and they would die. wither away, even though it seemed like it would be a good harvest, it wouldn't, it didn't happen. But then there's always the problem of the fall. Verse seven, and some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop, no herbicides back then.

You know, farmers are always struggling with this question, do you pull up the weeds or do you let them stay? How will you let them go? How much work do you need to do? Because if I pull up the weeds, I'm full of the tears, what will happen to the weed? So there's always this question in the ancient Israelite farming. What do I do with these weeds? That can't stop you from sowing the seed, can it? You're just worried about the weeds and you don't ever plant the seed, what happens? Family goes hungry. The seed still has to get planted.

But some of it, Jesus says in verse 8, But other seeds fell on good ground, and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some I was just at a farmer's combine the other day, and it was really neat. He had this screen, and as he was harvesting corn, you could actually see, is this a red area of the field, or a yellow area of the field, or a green area of the field, or a really dark green area of the field? How productive is this land? How good is the land depends on how much it yields. And so here, Jesus says there's seed that falls onto the good land, and produces a huge crop. Now, at that time, the estimator, You might have a 10-fold crop and that'd be a great crop. But Jesus takes us to an extreme and he says a 30-fold, a 60, 100-fold crop? That's massive. Farmers, you gotta figure out how to do Jesus-type farming. This is exponential growth that he's talking about.

Jesus authoritatively says in verse nine, He said to them, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. You might just be comfortable with that phrase, because we've read the Gospels too many times, but he's saying, if you got it here, listen up and understand it. All right, you got two ears on your head, you should understand this.

But thank God the disciples asked questions that a stupid person like me would ask. Verses 10 through 13, the disciples come to him when he's alone, And they asked him about the parable. And here we actually get inside information. Aren't you thankful for the scriptures? Are you with me? The rest of the crowd wasn't privileged to this information. As Mark recalls this, or as Peter recalls this, and Mark writes it down, we get inside information from one of his disciples of our Savior's own explanation of his own parable.

He said to them, to you it was given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, all things come in parables. But why? But Jesus, just to make sure we understand, Jesus is saying, my disciples, you are all my chosen ones, I'm gonna speak to you plainly. But to everyone else, they get parables, they get similes, they get allegories, they get comparisons, they get illustrative teaching, but not just straight to the point teaching. Why? This is the difficult part. Verse 12. That seeing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand, lest they should turn, and their sins be forgiven. The reason Paul's here, so that.

Because the reality is that Jesus isn't going to bring light to everyone's eyes. Reality is hearing that Jesus has a particular people that he's going to enlighten. Not everyone's been given into his hand, but only the ones in the Father's call. So the scribes who have done believing hearts and want nothing to do other than to kill Jesus, they're going to hear this and be confused or be mad. Those who would love the world more than Jesus are going to hear this, scratch their heads, and go, what? I don't know what that was about. Jesus spoke these words in parables, something that most evangelicals aren't very comfortable with. Because he didn't come for every single human being on the entire world. So Jesus instructs them in verse 13. a little bit of a stinging question to be answered.

Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? If we're honest with ourselves, how often are we wrong in our understanding? And if you're honest, how often do you read your Bible and you read the paragraph and you read the paragraph and you still go, I don't get it, I don't understand it.

Happens to me all the time. We need the Holy Spirit to explain things to us. We need Him to talk to us. And so Jesus does what He does best, He teaches. Look at me, I've been explaining this daily in verses 14 and 20. This is where I really want to stress and press upon all the rest of the background information. Now we need to deal seriously with the matter at hand. Verse 14, Jesus says, the sower sows the word. What is the seed? The seed is the word. It is the gospel of Christ. Jesus is the sower.

He said he's going out and he's spreading the gospel. He's going out and he's telling the whole world about the gospel and he's not concerned about those who aren't going to believe. He knows it's going to happen but he's still going to broadcast it. The word is still going to be spread. far and broad.

I need to warn you, we are a Reformed church, a Calvinistic church, but there are people on the edges of the Reformed world who are hyper-Calvinist, who say that we should only give the seed to Christians. That's flies that we need to shoo away from the honey.

No, we spread the gospel to everyone. We share the gospel with everyone because Jesus broadcasts his seed to everyone. And the scribes are going to be judged for their rejection of Christ. Those who love the world will be judged for their dullness with Christ. And so we sow the gospel because Jesus sows the word. He preaches the gospel. And some of it, yes, falls on the path. These are the scribes. No sooner did the words come out of Jesus' mouth And Satan himself comes down and snatches it from them.

Some of you in here today, you don't like me. You might not like these stories. You don't even want to be here. You're just here because of the person next to you or because someone drug you here today. Some of you are, even right now, as we've gone through the first half of this parable, of this story, have turned off your hearts. Open souls. Just ignore this. Just get through it. Rip my teeth right now. I see it in nursing homes all the time. I see it when I go and talk to people who are in their 80s and 90s who have zero desire for the things of God. I see it here. They stand in this pulpit and preach the gospel as there's a casket here, and people's faces are cold and dark. They're just here because they want to remember their loved one and speak about their family, but they have no desire for Jesus.

What will change? Someday, each one of us must stand before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ whether our hearts were a steward of the path or whether they were the mid-soil. Where is your heart today? Is your heart so dry and cold to the gospel that it's like the cracked ground where a log can be drug through the field into the cracks?

Jesus is speaking to the scribes and he tells them, Whoa. This piece is the unbelieving evidence. Don't say that with joy, but say it with tears in your eyes, because these are our family members, our loved ones. We've heard the gospel. Jesus says to us that as he's sowing this gospel, as he's broadcasting the seed broadly, Some of them will land on rocky soil, verses 16 and 17. Likewise are those sown on stony ground.

When they hear the word immediately, they receive it with gladness. They have no root in themselves and so endure only for a time. Afterward, tribulation or persecution arises. For the word's sake, immediately they stumble. We live in a world of easy believism. But we live in a world where all you have to say is a sinner's prayer, raise your hand in an evangelistic meeting, and automatically you're saved. People hear this great joy that they can be with God in heaven forever, and they hear about no more pain, no more suffering, they hear all these great promises, but they aren't given the full truth of the gospel if they believe in Jesus. So many people today, will boast about how many thousands of people made a decision to follow Jesus at their crusades and at their meetings.

All the while, where's the discipleship? Where's the root? Spring up with the early rains, they look like they're thriving with the winter rains and with the late rain, but when the drought comes, persecution and tribulation happen. Somebody calls them a bigot, hateful, bad, But I'm telling you, I meet with Indian pastors every single week. I try to encourage them every single week. Talking to my brother, I can't say his name online right now, but I talk to one of my brothers every two weeks, he and I alone, and as he's talking, he says, Brian, I understand that Jesus is worth it, but I'm a human and it's hard for me to walk down the street and have a woman spit in my face and slap me. Because the gospel tears down the castles. Because the good news of Jesus Christ goes out to all sorts of people and he'll preach it to whoever's poor or rich, high or low. Why? Why? Because he's talking about eternity.

And it's ruining your entire way of life. I need to warn you. We face verbal persecution here in the West, nothing like what our brothers and sisters face in places like North Korea, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Nothing like what they're facing in North Sudan and Ethiopia. There's a cloud on the horizon. And unless the Lord stops the darkness that continues to encroach upon our land, I have no doubt that someday many pastors will end up in chains. Churches will lose more and more rights. You'll lose more and more privileges. You know how the Communist Party does things in China? You know what they did six years ago? They banned all online stores from selling Bibles. unless it's the official Bible that the Communist Party proves them. It doesn't happen often.

We think of persecution, and we think of it happening like Nero burning Christians to light his barn. You talk about what's going on in Cuba, and North Korea, and in China, and it looks like you're being kicked out of your house. It looks like you're having to give up your job as a professor because you won't subscribe to some type of statement. It looks like losing your income, your 401k, your retirement. It looks like your children not getting accepted into the schools that they shouldn't be able to go to.

It looks like, as my brothers in India tell me, everyone else gets the support, all the Hindus will get their support, but the Christians don't get any support. It looks like prejudicial. So when people will take these surveys and say, oh, Christians aren't persecuted in the West, persecution always starts here. And it's asked, it's allowed to keep going.

But the question is for you, this is my question for you with that, how will you respond when your child is on the line? How will you respond when they tell you to teach something that you know you ought not to teach? How will you respond when your job is threatened? When your livelihood is threatened?

When you look your little children in the eyes and you have to determine, do I feed my children or do I follow Christ? Are you gonna be a Christian? Because it's easy in the West right now. They fear that when the storm comes, we're going to have many Christians who find out in this evening with great joy. But when persecution comes, the sun comes, it will dry itself and wither away.

What do you do? What do you do? How do you have roots? I don't want to just describe this thing for you. I'm going to press in on these last two. I'm just going to encourage you. You need to be rooted and firmly fixed in Jesus Christ. How do you do that? How are you built up in your faith? How do you become Colossians 2, 3, and 4 Christians? How do you become those who cling to Jesus Christ despite persecution? It starts with ordinary things, just like persecution starts little.

This is where our forefathers were so wise in what they wrote as an ordinary means of grace. Go read the Bible. I'm telling you right now, if you don't have a Bible, I think we've got like 17 dozen of them in cupboards around here. We'll give you a Bible for free. As long as you promise to read it. Fathers, you want to leave a legacy for your children? To have deep roots? Read the Bible with your children. This is the radical thing in the West. You wanna be truly radical in our culture?

Go pray with your wife. Get on your knees and plead with your family. Go and be washing your wife in the water of the word. Be taking your family time and time again to the family altar, bringing them to the Lord. reading with them, praying with them, observing the sacraments with them, showing your faith, live in action as you care for one another in the church.

They're ordinary things. But God works through ordinary means. It's easy for us to blow off our Bible readings. It's easy for us to put prayer to the side when we're so busy. It's easy for us to just want to go on these trips and do these things on the Lord's day, rather than being with his people and hearing the word preached.

But this is the ordinary way in which Jesus himself gave us for the church to be rooted in. I need to be reminded of Jesus every day. You need to be reminded of the gospel every day. We need to encourage one another, challenge one another, build one another up in our holy faith. This is how we'll be rooted with one another. You are not meant to be alone as a Christian. There's no lone wolf Christianity. We're a fellowship, we're a body. How do we grow roots?

By being honest with one another. Meditating on God's word together, singing God's word to one another, praying for one another. Let's see, there's another type of soil of weeds. Verses 18 and 19. Now these are sown among the thorns. They were the ones who hear the word and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches and the desires of other things entering in, choke the word and becomes unfruitful.

If this was true during Jesus' age, could you imagine what he would say today in a land of consumerism? Go to the Have you ever gone on an airplane flight before and seen the magazines that they have? Man, you could cover over all the luxury and comfort of the world. Have you ever turned on your TV and just thought for a moment, why are there so many commercials? I'm telling you, I did marketing. And the purposeful desire is to, and the purposeful goal is to show up a desire within you to buy something, to want something. And we live in a culture, why do you think your phone is recording what you hear and what you say?

Because Satan wants you to be consumed with nothing more than to continue to think after the things of this world, to buy the stuff of this world, Having stuff, having money is a false sense of security. I just have enough money to retire, then I'll be happy. If my house just looked this perfect way like it does in the magazines or at my neighbor's place, then I'll finally have joy and peace in my heart. If I just have that nice new truck, then I'll finally be able to be happy and content and I'll never once again, and you know that's lying, The false joy, if I only had, and I'll let you fill in the blank, finally had a piece.

Remember when we were running our photography business? Hey, when you're running a business, the numbers are always in front of you. And when you're in charge of the financial statement, you know how much money has to go in, and you keep track of how much money's coming out.

And I remember my friend challenging me, my friend Isaac, who used to pray with each other every Monday, Wednesday, Friday morning. And we were there in the studio at 5.30 a.m. praying. He looked up at me at one point, he said, Brian, you know poor people can covet too. That was a sharp mute by one of my friends, and I was worried too much about the things in this world I went home on my bathroom mirror and I wrote this parable on the mirror.

The seedfulness of wealth and the character of his life will kill me. I realized that my heart was trying to find security and peace, happiness, how much revenue is coming in rather than how much Jesus is dying. but nothing more than a voluminous thing with a sense of false. How do you combat these weeds? As you take stock of your own heart, as you look at the garden in your own soul, how do you combat this in your life? I'm gonna give you a few key elements here.

First Point

First, you combat it with humility. You combat the weeds in your heart with humility, recognizing that we don't deserve anything And out of that humility, recognizing how blessed we are, will come thankfulness.

And as you cultivate in your heart the fruit of thankfulness, as a spirit works in you, instead of I want, I want, I want, but God, thank you. Lord, you're so gracious. Father, you've opened your hand again. Out of that plant of thankfulness, do you know what the fruit is? Generosity.

If you don't know how to love this world's stuff less, don't give it away. If you wanna know where to give it away, I know a whole bunch of pastors in India right now really desire to supply this. If you're just looking for a way to give stuff away, I have a little girl in the Congo right now who's asking for any school supplies and any clothing that they might be able to apply. We get these from around the world all the time. We don't publish them to you, but there are needs around the world. As you look in your own family, in your own community, in the church, and in the church globally, you'll find you are some of the most rich people in this entire world.

First Point

First, we cultivate humility. We encourage a plant of thankfulness. We bury the fruit of generosity. We have a heart of mercy. to look at others with empathy.

The Holy Spirit works this in your heart. Things in this world, yeah, you're in the world, so you're gonna need some stuff. It's helpful to have food. It's nice to have shoes. We don't live on bread alone. Heavenly Father knows it's needful. But lastly, there's the food soil. Verse 20. But these are the ones sown underground. Those who hear the word, accept it and bear fruit. Some 30-fold, some 60, and some 100. I want you to be honest with yourself for a moment. We're almost done here.

But have a moment of sobriety, of honest reflection. If we could look at your heart this week, How much did you enjoy spending time in God's Word? If you honestly evaluated your time this week, and the concerns of your heart, how much of it was taken to the Lord in prayer? Or how much was it just your anxiety trying to fill up, trying to figure out things for yourself?

I'm gonna challenge you. I'm gonna challenge you. When you go home this afternoon or you talk with your family tonight, I'd like you to open up Relations chapter six. Find the fruit to the spirit. Now, I'm dead serious, this is a good exercise to do. Ask your spouse, ask your children, ask your brothers and sisters, ask whoever's near you.

Do you see joy? Do you see self-control? Do you see thankfulness? Do you see peace? And then go pick up 1 Corinthians, if you're not humbled enough by that, then go pick up 1 Corinthians, and I want you to go look at what love looks like. And I want you to ask yourself, am I patient? Am I kind like Christ? Am I gentle with you? Parents, I encourage you to have this honest conversation with your kids.

Because as we are honest with ourselves, Holy Spirit does this work in us. This is only something that the Holy Spirit can do. I don't want you to leave here and think that this is just a self-help sermon that I've given you. This is the Holy Spirit who will work through his word in your life as you continue to weave the garden of your own soul. Are you bearing fruit in keeping with it?

I love funerals. That might sound weird, doesn't it? Maybe I'll qualify that. I love funerals of faithlessness. Man, I like to boast. I love to speak of our friends and family members and get to tell them, look at the legacy they've left behind. I love to tell the stories of the joy that came to their face when they heard the scriptures. I love to tell family members about their favorite souls. Love funerals. Because at the end of their life, as they run the race, well, I'm the one who gets to tell everyone.

Look at the fruit. 3600 fold. Not because the fruit is their salvation, but the fruit shows that the seed was sown hundreds. So take heed, take stock of your life. Pray that this morning and even this afternoon and tonight you will take an honest evaluation. Is your garden like mine last year, weeds up to your chest? Or have you cultivated your heart? Are you bearing the fruit? Have you turned to God and have you been through?

Father, we confess to you, we are simple people. We plead you onward, that you would till the hard ground of our hearts, that you would plant us on good soil. Lord, we thank you for the work of your Holy Spirit, and we plead with you, Father, that you would keep us from denying you. and keep us growing in Jesus' name. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.