One at a Time - In Then Through, Part 2

If you find yourself frustrated in your life right now, with a relationship that's not working, or maybe something in your own life that you thought you would improve far more than you have by now, here's the deal. You never reap in the same season that you sow. And today, my friend Kyle Idelman has a story to tell you that will help you get back on track.

That's today. Stay with me. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. I'm Dave Prewy, and as most of you know, Chip's our regular Bible teacher for these daily programs.

But for this series, he's passed the mic to his good friend Kyle Idelman. He's the lead pastor at Southeast Christian Church and a popular author and speaker. In just a minute, Kyle will continue his series one at a time by unpacking for us God's principle of first working in us before he can work through us. And if you're wanting to apply this truth to your life, stick around after this message to hear some practical advice from Chip.

What with that, here again is our guest teacher, Kyle Idelman, with the second half of his message. I had a gift that was given to me a few years ago by a lady in the church. She gave me a couple of packets of seeds. If I remember right, they were seeds for pumpkins and watermelons. This is fun, but I am not a farmer. And if I want a watermelon, I'll go to the store and buy one. And if I want a pumpkin, I'll pick one up in pumpkin season. Like I love the idea of planting a seed and cultivating it and growing it.

But it just takes so much time and effort and work. And so I stuck those packets of seeds in the junk drawer in my kitchen where everything goes to die. And I left them there. I forgot about them.

Didn't really think much about them. But occasionally, occasionally there would be a time where I would think, man, you know what sounds good right now is a watermelon. And I would remember the watermelon seeds.

But that didn't do me any good at the time because I needed to be planted I don't even know how long ago because I never actually read the back of the packet. This is the end and through challenge. And I think most of us, if you're a parent, you've certainly experienced it where you've needed something within you spiritually or emotionally at a certain moment. But you realize in that moment you don't have it. And if you were going to have it, you needed to start a long time ago trying to get it right. Or maybe in marriage, you reach this place in your marriage where you recognize there's a certain way God wants you to respond and that's how you want to respond.

But if you're going to respond that way, you needed to start a long time ago learning to respond that way. And this is the end and through way of the seed. That today is the day that that seed gets planted and cultivated and begins to grow.

Today is the day. And for some of you, God is wanting to do some work in you later. And if you wait until later, you won't have it in you. So today is the day we plant and today is the day we cultivate. We let the seed go into the dirt and it doesn't feel like anything is happening in the dirt.

But something is happening. The seed, the Word of God, is not buried. It's planted. There's a difference between something being buried and planted. It's not buried. It's planted. And it's going to bear a harvest if you do not give up.

If you keep being intentional to water it. You keep praying. You keep studying Scripture. You keep guarding your heart and mind from the weeds that would want to choke it out. You pull the weeds in your life by repenting, confessing, having accountability.

You cultivate that seed and something will begin to break through. It takes time. For some of you, what God wants to do in you and eventually through you is going to come out of something that happened to you. And what you've tried to do up until this point is you've tried to forget about what happened to you. You've tried to move on.

You've tried to close that page altogether. But here's the thing. There's some things that God wants to do in you because of what happened to you that eventually will lead to the great work He wants to do through you. And so we don't want to just be done with it. We want God's grace, but we want Him to redeem those things.

Do His work in us so that He can accomplish His work through us. It takes time. I think of Joseph, age 17. He has this dream about how God might use him. But it wasn't going to be instant. He dreamed of having great influence, but it wasn't instant influence.

It took time. So for the next 20 years, sold into slavery, put in prison, but there's things that are happening in him during that season and God would do great things through him. I think of Moses. Moses wanted God to work through him in a powerful way to free his people from the Egyptians. One day when Moses is a young man, in an impulsive moment, he kills this Egyptian soldier who's abusing one of his Jewish brothers and he has to flee for his life. He goes to the backside of the desert.

He works for his father-in-law for 40 years. I'm guessing he had long since given up on this dream that God would do something powerful through him. But for those 40 years, God was at work in him. And then one day there's a bush that's burning and God says, something's going to break through.

Now is the time. Some of you have given up on a dream, but God never gave up on it in your life. Like you knew as a young person that God wanted to work through you in some way.

Like you had these ideas of how you could make a difference and you've given up on them. God hasn't given up on it. There's some things that needed to happen in you and maybe are still happening in you, but he's going to do his work through you.

And there's something that's happening in the dirt, something that's happening in the soil. And so Jesus unpacks this parable for the disciples. They come to him and say, Hey, what's all this mean? Verse 14, Jesus says, The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path where the word is sown. As they hear it, Satan comes and takes 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.

So there's some emotion to it, but since they have no roots, it only lasts a short time. And when trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others are like seed sown among the thorns. They 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. And finally, others are like seed sown on good soil.

Hear the word, accept it, they receive it, they produce a good crop. In Matthew's account of this parable, he makes it clear that the farmer in the parable is Jesus. That Jesus is the one who sows the word. It strikes me that last week we talked about the shepherd and the lost sheep. The shepherd goes and he rescues the lost sheep and we're listening to that parable and we're like, I'm the shepherd.

No, you're the sheep. This week, it's the farmer who sows the seed. I'm the farmer.

No, you're the dirt. Like in this parable, our role is to be soil where the seed, the word of God, can take root and can grow. But Jesus mentions four different kinds of soil. So I just kind of want to see where you're at on these four different spiritual soils. Because in large part, the condition of the soil is going to determine the work of God in you and through you. So the first kind of soil he talks about is the path, which is another way of saying the road. And on the road, it's hard.

The seeds don't really have a chance to get into the soil because the surface is so hard. Matthew 13, Jesus speaks of those who have closed their ears, have shut their eyes, and have hardened their hearts. And this is where some of you are. Like you do not want to be here.

You're here because you feel like you have to be for one reason or another or because you're trying to keep the peace, trying to meet some kind of expectations. But spiritually, you have become hard and cold and cynical and different. You don't like being here. You don't like me.

You're ready to get out of here and go do something different. I know it. For some of you, I can see it. Sometimes I think you forget that you can see me, but I can see you too. And there's just that look. Your arms are crossed. Don't feel bad if your arms are crossed right now.

That's just how some of you listen. But you've got that look in your eyes. Like you're not open.

You don't care. And if that's where you're at, then you're in a really dangerous place spiritually. There's seeds that are being sown in your life, and it's just landing on this hard surface. When you reach that place spiritually, it's hard to know you're there. There's something about a hard heart that makes it hard to know your heart is hard.

So let me give you just a few symptoms of a hard heart that I hope will kind of break through a little bit of that soil. One thing is you're just going through the motions. You're just going through the motions. Like you're doing some things, but it's more muscle memory that your heart's not in it.

You're kind of checking a list, but it's not real. Number two is spiritual apathy. You have no spiritual energy right now. The idea of taking any time to pray at all seems heavy.

You don't have time for it. Like spiritually, you just don't have any passion or energy. Or number three, there's this stubborn resistance, where God has for some time convicted you of sin that you know needs to be repented of and confessed.

You know it, and you keep putting it off, and the longer you put off, here's what happens. The harder your heart has become, and now that conviction is just barely there anymore. It is strong for a while, but the more you put God off, the harder your heart becomes until you just suddenly one day no longer care, and then at some point almost celebrate the rebellion. Or maybe another indicator would be this bitter resentment that you're angry with God because you blame him for something you're going through, that you thought your life would be different right now than it is, and you feel like that's his fault, that he owes you something. You have this sense of entitlement spiritually, and so some things have gone wrong in your life, not how you thought they would go, and maybe your parents split up, or the doctor gave you a diagnosis, or you were let go from your job, or your spouse broke your heart, or any number of things or combination of things, and your heart has just become hard towards God.

Number five, you're always thinking about what God wants to do in someone else's life, but never really taking much time to think about your own. This is this religious hard-heartedness. It's the self-righteous hard-heartedness.

It's like the religious leaders, they knew God's word really well. They had it in their mind, but they didn't have it in their heart, and so it's this idea that you're listening to a message, and the whole time you listen to the message, you're thinking of people who need to hear it other than yourself. You're like, oh, I hope he hears this.

I hope she's paying attention this weekend. That's an indication of hard-heartedness, where it's always somebody else in your life that needs the message, but there's not a lot of humility or self-reflection in your own life. And even now, even now you're listening to this, thinking of someone who's like that. Oh, I know someone who's like that. They're always thinking of someone else who needs to hear it.

I hope they're listening to this message about what they need to hear, so they won't think about what other people need to hear. You're the person, right? Like that's you. Second soil is rocky places. This is a seed that is sown and immediately received with joy, but there's no root to it. So they receive it with some emotion, but they don't cultivate it, and so it comes up quickly, but then it doesn't last because the roots aren't deep. And I think spiritually that this has been true for many of us at different times, where we had some moment where we experienced something spiritually, like God moved us or spoke to us or inspired us or convicted us and challenged us, and a seed got planted in the soil, but we didn't really do anything with it.

In fact, you leave church or you leave that moment whenever it was, and you quickly get your mind on other things, and now you look back on it, and you think, well, I was spiritually manipulated. That was just all emotion. That wasn't real.

It probably was real, but it landed among a lot of rocks, and you didn't do anything to clear out the rocks. Like you didn't keep cultivating the soil, and so no roots took place. For some of you, this needs to be the year of roots in your faith, where you are intentional to spiritually mature and not just live on the emotion of moments. Third type of soil Jesus mentions is among thorns, or we could translate that as among weeds. The idea is that these seeds are planted, that they're planted among all kinds of weeds, and so the moment they start to surface, something comes through the ground, the weeds choke it out. He mentions three different kinds of weeds, the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the pleasures of life. And so I think what happens for a lot of us, maybe even in this moment, right? You have some conviction about something God wants to do in you. A seed gets planted in the soil, but then even today, you're gonna go plant some weeds among the seeds and then wonder why nothing grows.

Like even today, you know you're gonna go fill your heart and your mind with these things, worries of this life, deceitfulness of wealth, the pleasures of this life. You're gonna fill your garden with those weeds, and the seed that's getting planted right now is gonna get choked out. And so it's not just that a seed gets planted, it's that weeds get pulled, and especially that weeds don't get planted, and it's the in-then-through way of the kingdom.

God's wanting to do something in you, a seed that's being planted right now. And the way God has designed it is that the seed is hardwired for harvest. That's the power of his word, it's the promise of his word, that if the word of God is planted as a seed in the soil of your heart, and you cultivate it and take care of it, a harvest will come, it will come.

It's the way of nature, if you plant a seed in the ground, and you take care of it, and the soil is good, there's a harvest that's hardwired in the seed to multiply many times over the seed. And so what does God want to do in you to accomplish his work through you? One of the things that I love about watching God's work in a person is I know, even if they don't, that there's some things that's gonna happen through that person. When I see someone making a decision, I'm thankful for what God's doing in them, but I know God's going to do some things through them. In other words, when someone makes a decision, I recognize, because I've seen it enough, that it's not just that person that's gonna be impacted, it's all these people around them, because when God does something in you, he will do something through you in the lives of other people. So every person you see baptized, God's doing something in them, but God's gonna do something through them. I don't know who all those people are, but I promise you, he's not just gonna do something in that person, he's gonna do something through that person.

So when you make a decision, when you spiritually allow the hard-heartedness of your heart to be broken up, like God does something in you, but there's other people attached, God's gonna do some things through you. I think about my own life. I think about the end and through way of God that in 1956, 1956, my grandparents were far from God.

I didn't know him. My grandpa had challenges with drinking. There's lots of conflict in their home, lots of brokenness. They didn't know Jesus, didn't have a church family, just getting by. And then one day someone came, knocked on their door, invited them to church, told them about Jesus, and God began to do his work in my grandparents and really changed everything about them, everything. And what God did in them in 1956 continues to bear harvest.

All these years later, you don't know how a decision you make now will affect the people around you and the generations to come after you. So what is it that God is wanting to do in you so that he can accomplish his work through you? You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Kyle Eidelman has been our guest teacher for this program in Then Through, which is from his series One at a Time.

Chip will join us in just a minute to share his application for this message. Have you ever considered the remarkable impact Jesus has had on history? Well, think about it. He lived over 2,000 years ago and only had a small group of followers. Yet fast-forward to today, Christianity is the leading world religion. So what was Jesus' secret? In this series, Kyle Eidelman reveals the unexpected simple practice Jesus used to change our world. Don't miss how you and I can continue the work he started. One interaction, one conversation, one life at a time.

To learn more about the series or Kyle's best-selling book, go to livingontheedge.org, The Chip Ingram Map, or call us at 888-333-6003. Well, Chip's joined me here in studio now, and Chip, today Kyle wrapped up his message by talking about the commitment it takes to plant and grow a seed. Well, here at Living on the Edge, we have a core group of people who want to see this ministry flourish, so they invest in us on a monthly basis. And that regular support really has a tremendous impact, doesn't it?

Absolutely, Dave. Monthly partners make a huge difference in the life of the ministry. Not only does it tell us that you're with us, your heart is with us because your money is being given and helping us each and every day, but it tells us that you're really a part of the family, that you are one of those people that, whether it's a big amount, small amount, really that's immaterial. But it's about saying rather than just now and then, it lets us know here is a group of people that are on mission with us to help Christians live like Christians.

And like any organization, the predictability of knowing that people are behind you, that you can count on whatever it is each month, it makes a huge difference. And so if you've been listening, and I'm sure many of you have already given once here or there, or maybe you have listened and just have never thought about, oh wow, that's right, these people have to pay for all of this, would you consider, just prayerfully, God, would you like me to partner with Living on the Edge? It can be whatever amount God shows you, but it would mean the world to us, and I think you would find your heart resonating as you partner with the ministry because it's not just a financial provision, it's becoming a part of the ministry that helps other people. So here's my request.

Pray specifically and then do just whatever God shows you. Thanks, Chip. Well, as you prayerfully consider your role with this ministry, I want to remind you that every gift is significant. When you partner with Living on the Edge, you multiply our efforts and resources in ways that only God can do. To set up a recurring donation, go to livingontheedge.org or visit the Chip Ingram app. You can also text the word DONATE to 74141.

That's donate to 74141. We appreciate your support. Well, Chip, Kyle's message today focused on the idea that God has to first work in us before He can work through us. But you know, oftentimes we don't want Him to work that way.

So before we wrap up today, could you give us a little pastoral coaching to help us better respond to God's direction? Well, Dave, I think that's all of us, and I appreciate Kyle sharing that. I can't control the things that happen to me. None of us can.

I have some very, very close friends whose mates have walked out on them. I have some close friends, one in particular who died in his sleep, and his daughter and wife are still, I mean, what happened? He was healthy.

He was great. He went to bed, played golf the day before, and then he's gone. I've sat with moms whose sons were killed by a drunk driver. And you respond to life the best you can, and it's okay to grieve and to be stuck and to be angry and go through all the process that we need to. But at some point in time, you either have to allow the world to shape you and become a victim and find yourself absolutely in the ditch and often for years or decades, or you pause and say, there is a God who is good.

It doesn't feel good right now. He's absolutely sovereign and in control. He didn't cause this to happen, but in a fallen, corrupt world, He allows sin and evil to play its course for a limited amount of time. And what He's promised, if I will lean in, that He can do something good in me and through the even worst of times. And whether that's the Bible story about Joseph where everything bad happened to him and God used to prepare him to accomplish something great, or whether it's in lives like yours, Dave, and mine, and those listening to us, where they find themselves coming through COVID or losing a job or finding that, you know, relationships have been broken or, you know, a health issue just won't go away.

Whether we like it or not, it's when we lean in and we respond to the question Kyle ended with. What does God want to do in you right now? And I would just pause now and say to each one of our listeners, what is it God wants to do in you? What's He want to do in your heart? Does He want you to forgive someone? Does He want you to address a habit or an addiction? Does He want you to stop complaining and whining or blaming and begin to say, okay, God, I can't change things. I will be a part of the solution.

I don't know what it is, but what I know is this. God must work in us deeply before He works through us significantly. And so, Father, that's my prayer. That's what I ask. That's Your will for each person listening to my voice right now.

Would You do that? In Christ's name, amen. Amen. Thanks, Chip. Well, before we go, let me take just a second and tell you about a resource we've created to help you deepen your relationship with God in a very practical way. It's called Daily Discipleship with Chip. Through this free video course, you'll learn to study God's Word alongside Chip one-on-one. For each series, you'll spend no more than 10 minutes with Chip in a particular passage of Scripture. Then he'll challenge you to spend 10 more minutes on your own.

It's that easy. You'll be blown away by how much you'll learn about God and His Word. So sign up for any of our Daily Discipleship series today. Just go to livingontheedge.org, app listeners, tap Discipleship. Well, from all of us here, this is Dave Drouie, thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.