The Crowd by the Sea of Galilee - People Jesus Met Part 33

You know, we're involved in a series of messages entitled People Jesus Met, and today we're going to watch as Jesus meets a group of people around the Sea of Galilee and as he tells them a story, a parable that is all about how different people react in different ways when they hear the message of Jesus Christ, the Gospel. And so what we want to do is go back 2,000 years and see what Jesus told this crowd around the sea, and then we want to bring all that forward and we want to talk about, okay, so what difference does that make to you and me? So Luke chapter 8 is our passage, and we begin at verse 4.

Here we go. The Bible says, And a large crowd gathered around Jesus, coming from town after town. So he told them this parable. And Matthew chapter 13, where the parable is also recorded, adds that all of this happened on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Verse 5, here's our parable. A sower went out to sow his seed. Now in Jesus' day, farmers would take their seed to the field in a bag that they would hang in front of them around their neck, and they would scatter seed, they would sling the seed in every direction as they walked, and the seed would fall on all kinds of soil. In fact, Jesus goes on to tell us about the four kinds of soil that the seed could fall on.

Here we go, verse 5. As the farmer sowed, some seed fell along the road, and it was trampled underfoot, and the birds ate it up. Now this first kind of soil Jesus tells us about is hard soil. In ancient Israel, in the fields, there were footpaths about three feet wide, four feet wide that interwove through the fields that the farmers walked on so they could get to their crops without trampling on them.

And because of this heavy foot traffic, these paths became beaten down like asphalt, hard as a rock. And Jesus said that some of the seed fell here, but seed that fell here, Jesus said, was not able to take root. It just would lie on the surface of the ground until the birds came along and they ate it up.

Verse 6. And some other seed fell on rocky soil, but as soon as it sprouted, it withered away, since it could not get enough moisture from the soil. And Matthew 13 tells us why it couldn t get enough moisture from the soil. It was because, Matthew says, there was not much depth of soil here. Now the second kind of soil Jesus tells us about is shallow soil.

Israel is a country that s loaded with limestone, and in many places in Israel, even to this day, there is a solid bedrock of limestone covered by an inch of dirt or two inches of dirt. A seed that falls here would sprout very quickly in the sun, but when the hot, dry weather comes, the seed can t send its roots down deep to get the moisture it needs to survive because of that solid bedrock of limestone, and so the seed simply withers and dies. Verse 7. And other seed fell among the weeds, and the weeds grew up with it and choked it out. The third kind of soil that Jesus tells us about is contaminated soil.

As soon as the seed sprouts and begins to grow, these weeds begin to grow right alongside of it, and eventually they overpower the seed, and they literally choke the seed off so that it dies. Verse 8. And other seed fell on good soil and bore fruit, and Matthew 13 adds, some 100 fold, some 60 fold, and some fruit 30 fold. Now this fourth kind of soil Jesus tells us about is good soil. It s soft enough to take the seed in. It s not hard soil, and it s deep enough to allow the seed to take root.

It s not shallow soil, and it s clean enough to allow the seed to prosper. It s not contaminated soil, and so the seed bursts to life, Jesus says, and it bears lots and lots of fruit. Verse 8. And when Jesus had finished speaking, he called out, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Now you say, Lon, what in the world is he talking about here?

What does all this mean? Well, the disciples had the very same issue. In fact, verse 9 says, the disciples asked him what the parable meant. And the thing I love about this parable is that Jesus doesn t leave us guessing as to what it really meant.

He actually interprets it for us. Verse 11. Jesus said, This is the meaning of the parable.

Okay, great. Here we go. The seed is the word of God. The seed is the message of the gospel. And what is the message of the gospel?

Just to make sure all of us are on the same page with this. Friends, the gospel message is that Jesus Christ is God wrapped in human flesh, that he died for our sins on the cross, that God offers forgiveness of sin freely to the whole world, but that the only way we can avail ourself of that forgiveness is by personal faith in Jesus Christ and personal reliance on his atoning work on the cross. This is the gospel. And please notice in our story about spreading the gospel that what the variable is in Jesus' story. The variable in his story is not the quality of the seed, and the variable in his story is not the skill of the sower. The variable in Jesus' story is the condition of the soil. And this is a critical point we must understand that each of these four soils represents a spiritual condition of the human heart which Jesus says determines how a person will respond to the gospel when they hear it. Friends, whenever you and I go out and sow the gospel, every person we meet will be one of these four soils. And to make it a little more personal, every single one of us here listening, we are one of these four soils here today. Okay, so let's look at Jesus' explanation of each of these soils to us.

Soil number one is the hard soil. Verse 12, Jesus said, the seed that fell along the road are those who hear, but then the devil comes along and takes the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved. The hard soil represents spiritually hard people. The message of the gospel, the seed of the gospel doesn't penetrate this person's heart at all because their heart is too hard. It's like spiritual asphalt.

It's like that beaten down soil on those paths in between the crops. Jesus says that this is a person who knows nothing of repentance, who knows nothing of contrition for sin. They know nothing of shame for sin or guilt for sin or sorrow for sin.

This person, when the message of Christ falls on their life, for a moment it sits on the surface, but because it has no place to go, the devil comes along and snatches it away just like those birds in Jesus' story. Now, we all know people like this, don't we? Yeah, we do. We live with people like this. We work with people like this. We go to school with people like this.

We spend Thanksgiving with people like this. These are people who have zero spiritual interest and they're proud of it. Soil number two is the shallow soil. Verse 13, the seed that fell on the rocky soil, Jesus says, are those who when they hear, they receive the word with joy. However, since they have no firm root in them, they believe for a while, but they fall away in times of testing. The shallow soil stands for, represents spiritually unprepared people, people whose soul is not yet ready for the gospel, people who still have a rockbed of self, a rockbed of spiritual limestone right below the surface that the Holy Spirit has never been allowed to break up in their lives. These are people who have never known the shattering conviction of the Holy Spirit that drives people to repentance for sin, true godly repentance. And Jesus said, a lot of times when these people hear the gospel message, they take it in with enthusiasm and excitement and they sprout so fast that we say, wow, they must be real.

This must be real. But friends, the seed has no place to go. It can't flourish. It can't get deeply rooted because of this unbroken bedrock of self in their life. And so when the sun starts getting hot, when the pressures and the trials of the true Christian life set in, this person withers. And a year later, we can't find them. And we say, well, they lost their salvation. Or we say, well, they're backslidden as a Christian.

Friends, no, they're not. The truth of the matter is, according to Jesus' parable, they were never really saved in the first place. You know, I've prayed the sinner's prayer with such people. I've baptized such people. I've married such people. I've counseled with such people. I've spent hours and hours with such people only to see them a year later, two years later, they're gone.

And you can't find them anywhere. You say, well, Lon, how does that make you feel? Well, it makes me feel terrible.

That's how it makes me feel. But I'm sure glad I know the truth of this parable. I'm sure glad I know that the seed didn't fail because it fell on this kind of soil. And that I, as the sower, didn't fail because I came across this kind of soil. The problem was not with the seed and the problem was not with the sower. The problem was with the condition of the soil.

I'm glad I know that. Soil number three is the contaminated soil. Verse 14, Jesus said, the seed that fell among the weeds stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way, the worries and the riches and the pleasures of this life choke the seed so that it does not mature and produce fruit.

Notice we haven't seen any fruit so far, okay? And we don't see it with this soil. The contaminated soil represents spiritually divided people, spiritually bifurcated people. What we have here is what the Bible calls James 1 8, a double minded person, a person who wants to hold on to God with one hand and who wants to hold on to the things of the world with the other hand. What we have here is a person that Jesus was talking about in Matthew 6 verse 24 when he said, no one can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and money. Friends, true salvation only comes when people are willing to forsake all that the world has to offer, money, power, fame, prestige, success, and when they are willing to follow Jesus Christ fully without hesitation or without reservation, full salvation, true salvation is only for people who hold on to God with both hands.

And people with soil number three, they're just not willing to do that. Now we all know people like this too, don't we? In fact, in America, they populate churches by the thousands every single weekend. They sit in the church seats, but during the week, these people don't share Christ with anybody because of they're worried what it might cost them in terms of their career or their reputation.

During the week, these people, they don't practice biblical obedience because they're not willing to pay the sacrifices that they've got to pay in their lifestyle and in their personal comfort to obey God fully. These people, they don't give sacrificially to the work of the Lord because they love their money too much. We often call these people carnal Christians.

And we say, well, they've just gone flat line. They're carnal Christians. No, they're not carnal Christians. Friend, they're not Christians at all. That's what Jesus says. These are non-Christians whose love for the things of this world chokes off the power of the gospel in their life like a huge spiritual weed for them. It is self, self, self.

That's the true God of their life. Ah, but that brings us to soil number four. Oh, I'm sure glad soil number four is in here.

Soil number four is the good soil. Verse 15, and the seed that fell on good ground, Jesus says, stands for those who have an honest and a good heart, who hear the word, look at this, who hold fast to it and steadfastly bear, what's the next word? Fruit. Ah ha, we got fruit. Praise the Lord.

We got some fruit. The fourth soil here, the good soil, represents spiritually fertile people. These are people, the soil of whose heart God has fully prepared by the Holy Spirit. These are people who have soft soil, and they have clean soil, and they have deep soil, and they have beautifully receptive soil to the Word of God because of the Holy Spirit's work in their heart. And as a result, when the seed falls on that soil, the Bible says it bears fruit. Matthew 13 says, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold, but good soil always bears fruit. And this is true salvation.

Soil number four. Friends, the proof of salvation is not foliage. It's fruit, the fruit of a transformed earthly life, being a new creature in Christ, the fruit of biblical obedience and a zeal for that in our life, the fruit of a love for the Word of God and a love for prayer, the fruit of a genuine desire to tell other people about Jesus Christ. Fruit, fruit, fruit means salvation, salvation, salvation.

So let's summarize. What have we learned so far? Well, in the parable of the four soils, Jesus says that when you and I go out and share the gospel, we'll come across hard soil and we'll go away discouraged, and we'll come across shallow soil, and we'll get all excited when it first springs up, and then when it dies away, we'll go, oh, shoot. And then we'll come across contaminated soil, and we'll invest in them, and we'll invest in them, and we'll invest in these people, but they will never let go of the world. And at this point, we're all beginning to wonder, is it really all worth it? Ah, but Jesus said, I just want to assure you, you'll also come across out there some good soil.

And when you come across that good soil and you sow the seed on that good soil, that seed will sprout and root and grow and bear fruit, amazing fruit, and it'll make it all worth it, all the other soils, when you find one person with good soil. Now, that's as far as we want to go in our passage, because we want to stop now and we want to ask our most important question. So are you ready? You sure? All right, here we go. All of you people out on the Internet, one, two, three.

Yeah. You say, Lon, so what? See, I think I got what the parable is talking about, and I appreciate that, but honestly, I don't really see what this has to do with me exactly.

Well, let's talk about that. You know, this parable demands, I believe, that all of us here need to do some spiritual examination in two ways. And here they are. Way number one, I believe this parable demands, first of all, that we all ask ourselves the question, what kind of soil am I? I mean, remember we said earlier that every single one of us here is one of these four soils today, so I think it behooves us to do some examination and try to figure out what kind of soil we are. Now, some of us here today are hard soil. Really not too many of us, or we wouldn't be here. We'd be out playing golf or riding our bicycle, but you know, a few of us got dragged in here by a spouse or a parent or a friend or a boyfriend or a girlfriend today, and we're sitting there going, what am I doing here? I don't believe any of this.

How long is he going to go on up there? A lot more of us here today are people who are outwardly sympathetic to Christianity. I mean, we've been a churchgoer much of our life. We've put a little money in the offering plate and we know a little bit of theology and we've served a little in the church, but our lives don't show the true fruit of salvation. We have no radical spiritual transformation of our earthly life. We have no true intimacy with God. We have no love for His word, no desire to pray, no passion to share Christ with other people, and no joy in our Christian experience.

And friend, if this is you, the problem is either that you're soil number two with an unbroken rock bed of self in your life, or you're soil number three with the weeds of worldliness in your life, but regardless, whether you're soil one, two, or three, the bottom line is still the same. According to Jesus' parable, you are not born again. You are not a true child of God. You are not headed for heaven. You say, well, Lon, if that's true, then there are a whole lot less people headed to heaven than most of us think. Well, you're right. I think that's right. And either way, whether you're soil one, two, or three, the solution is the same, my friends.

The solution is you need the condition of your soil change. Now, I got great news for you. The great news I have for you is that God can change people's soil.

He does it all the time. Ezekiel 36, verse 26, God says, I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take out of you, remove from you your heart of stone.

Hello. And I will give you a heart of flesh. Listen, God can make hard soil soft. He can make shallow soil deep.

He can make contaminated soil clean if we will just let Him. And I worry, I really do, about the fact that there are people I know who come here week after week after week and sit here and think that they're born again and think that they're going to heaven. But the truth is that they're spiritually flatlined. The truth is there's no fruit whatsoever in their life.

They're soil one, two, or three, and they're not born again and going to heaven. And maybe you've been forced today to conclude that this is you. Well, my hope is that if you've concluded that, you'll realize what you need. You need a change of soil. You need a change of heart. And my prayer is that you'll turn to God and you'll allow God and ask God to do that in you so the seed of the gospel can take root in your heart and really bear the fruit that born-again people bear. Now, you say, well, Lon, I understand that.

But you know what? Honestly, in evaluating my life, I'm soil number four. I mean, I'm not perfect, and I'm not sinless, but I mean, there's the real fruit of salvation is really in my life. I'm soil number four, so what does all this have to do with me? Well, remember I said there were two ways in which we needed to do self-examination, remember? And this is the second way, if you're really good soil, if you're really a believer in Christ, and the second way we need to examine ourselves is by asking how much fruit am I bearing for the Lord Jesus Christ? Remember what Matthew 13 said? It said that good soil bears fruit, some 100-fold, some 60-fold, and some 30-fold. In other words, all good soil produces fruit, but not all good soil produces the same amount of fruit. And I really believe that the Lord Jesus wants you and me not to be content to produce 30-fold, and He doesn't want us to be content to produce 60-fold even, but that He wants us to go for 100-fold. And I believe we should want to do that. I believe if you're a true believer in Christ, your goal should be, my goal should be to say, Lord Jesus, squeeze out of me every bit of fruit that I'm possibly able and capable of producing. Lord, squeeze it out of me. You say, but Lon, the fruit is produced by the Holy Spirit.

I know, I know. But you know, folks, there are things we can do to accelerate that process. There are things that we can do to add spiritual fertilizer to our soil.

You understand what I'm saying? And I've got three to give you, and we're done. What can we do to accelerate the amount of fruit that comes out of our life? What spiritual fertilizer can we add?

Well number one, we want to produce 100-fold fruit, then number one, we need to spend time in the written Word of God every day. Jeremiah 23, verse 29, is not my word like fire? Declare the Lord, and like a hammer that shatters rock.

Friends, the Bible says that the Word of God is a spiritual jackhammer that breaks up the rock bed of sin and self that's in our heart. And you know, it's not good enough to break up that rock bed once because it's like plaque. It comes back every day. You can't just break it up once in your life, or we can't just break it up once a week on Sunday.

No, no, it grows back. We've got to be taking that jackhammer out, and we've got to be breaking up that bedrock of sin and self every single day in our heart if we want to bear maximum fruit for the Lord Jesus Christ. No believer can produce 100-fold fruit for Christ without saturating themselves with the Word of God every single day. Spiritual fertilizer, number two.

Want to produce 100-fold fruit for the Lord? Then secondly, we need to be fervent about full obedience to God in our life. And the key word in there is the word full obedience. Because you see, friends, as far as God is concerned, anything less than 100% obedience is disobedience. You remember the story about King Saul, 1 Samuel 15?

Let me tell you about it. God sent him to do a job, and he only did it part way. God told him to kill all the animals in this village, and he saved some of them and said that he was going to save them to sacrifice to the Lord.

Okay. Well, on the way back with these animals, the great prophet Samuel met him, and here's what Samuel said to him. He said, Saul, to obey is better than sacrifice.

God doesn't care about your sacrifices. What he wanted you to do was obey. And Saul says to him, well, we obeyed most of it.

No, no. Most of it means you disobeyed. And friends, I would say to us today to obey is better than to go to church. To obey is better than to sing in the choir. To obey is better than to put some money in the offering plate. To obey is better than to lead a small group. To obey is better than anything.

This is why God said, Jeremiah 7, verse 22, he said to the Israelites, when I brought your fathers out of Egypt, I did not speak to them about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command. Here it is. Obey me. There you are. Obey me. And I will be your God and you will be my people. Friends, no believer can produce 100-fold fruit in their life for Jesus Christ without a fervent commitment to 100% biblical obedience.

We need to be like the prophet Samuel who said in 1 Samuel 3 to the Lord, he said, Lord, speak because your servant is listening. Lord, the answer is yes. Now what was the question? Will you go here? Yes. Will you do this? Yes.

Will you forgive that person? Yes. Will you say what I want you to say? Yes.

Will you live like I want you to live? Yes, yes, yes. Lord, the answer is yes. Now, what was the question?

Because it doesn't matter. The answer is still yes. Folks, these are the people that God can use to make 100-fold fruit. Number three and finally, fertilizer number three, is we must cultivate the filling of the Holy Spirit every day. Remember what we said about fruit that goes with salvation, the fruit of true intimacy with God, the fruit of a transformed life, the fruit of loving the Word of God and loving prayer and being passionate about sharing Christ. The fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5, love, joy, peace, long suffering, patience, self-control, these things cannot be produced by the energy of the flesh. They are the fruit of the Spirit. This is why Ephesians 5, 18 says be filled with the Spirit and no believer can produce 100-fold fruit for Jesus Christ except by being filled with the Spirit every day in their life. You say, well, Lon, how do you do that? Well, it's not hard.

No, no. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit wants to fill us. The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is anxious to fill us. The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is excited about filling us. You don't have to beg God to fill you with the Holy Spirit. You don't have to convince God to fill you with the Holy Spirit. Friends, the only thing we've got to do is stop doing the things that inhibit the Holy Spirit from filling us, that quench the Holy Spirit, that grieve the Holy Spirit. You say like what? Like sin, like willfulness, like rebellion in our life. And this is why if you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit every day, we've got to go out every day and moment by moment we have to renew that commitment of surrendering every part of our life to God and God's will.

And we have to confess sin when it happens and keep the channel open. You ever played PlayStation football? Anybody ever play that? My kids used to get me to play that, and they would absolutely murder me in this game. I can't play this game. I have no hand-eye coordination left.

I think I had it when I was younger, but I don't have anymore, at least not enough. And you remember if you ever played this game, when you go to kick off, there's this little barometer on the side that goes up and down with the amount of energy you're going to use for the kickoff. And the goal is to try to kick off when the barometer is all the way at the top. Well, it occurred to me one day when I was getting absolutely creamed in this game that the barometer is a lot like the filling of the Holy Spirit every day in our life. Friends, it goes up and down, up and down.

Our goal is to try to live every day with that little barometer at the absolute max we can keep it. But every time we sin, every time we resist God, every time we do something rebellious or disobedience, that thing dips. Well, you can't wait until coming home at night to deal with all of that because that baby will be empty by the time you and I come home. You got to deal with it moment by moment when it happens.

That's why when a woman walks your way and you look at her in a way that you got no business looking at her, you don't wait to get home to deal with that. You say right then and there, Lord Jesus, that was that was sin. I'm sorry.

That was wrong. Please forgive me. And pop that little barometer back up again.

That's why, ladies, when you walk by the shoe store and you see the pair of boots and you go, oh, I love those things, Lord, how come I don't make more money? You need to say, Lord Jesus, I'm sorry. I need to learn to be content. Forgive me for that, Lord. And that's how you keep the barometer up all day long. That's how you keep the filling of the Spirit up all day long. This is a moment by moment thing that we do. Friends, no believer can produce a hundredfold fruit for Jesus Christ walking around with their barometer down at the very bottom all day long.

It's got to be up. And so let's conclude. What have we learned today? Well, we've learned that as followers of Jesus Christ, God wants us to be as fruitful as we can possibly be. And the way we do that is we do it by fertilizing the soil with the things God gave us to use that will accelerate the production of fruit. Number one, it means that we need to spend time in the written Word of God every day and let God break up the sin and the self that grows back into our life overnight. Number two, it means that we need to be fervent about full obedience to God in our life.

And number three, it means that we need to cultivate the filling of the Holy Spirit every moment, every day. Now, I'm not a farmer. I'm not good at this.

My wife used to make me go out and plant tomatoes with our kids when they were little because she thought it was really important that they learn to grow something. Well, I can't grow tomatoes. I don't know how to grow anything. Stuff just dies when I touch it.

I mean, it just does. I can't grow anything, you know. And I don't know much about farming. But I do know enough to know this, that crops don't happen by accident.

I know that. I know if you want to produce lots of crops as a farmer, friends, you got to be deliberate about it. And as a farmer, you got to be intentional about it. And as a farmer, it takes hard work, and it takes commitment, and it takes dedication, and it takes self-discipline. Crops just don't happen by accident. Crops just don't happen by mistake.

I know that. And you know the same is true in the spiritual world, friends. If we want a hundredfold production of spiritual crops in our life, it takes intention. It takes deliberateness. It takes commitment and hard work and self-discipline.

It just doesn't happen. But I'll tell you what, there's never a happier farmer in the world than when he's got that barn full and the fruit's everywhere around him. And there's never a happier Christian in the world than when you're bearing fruit for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Makes all of it worth it. You say, well, Lon, I got one last question. Good, because that's all I got time for.

And you say, here's my last question. My last question is, Lon, I'm pretty sure I'm good soil. I'm pretty sure I'm truly born again, but I'm still growing. I mean, you know, I'm not always what I should be for the Lord, and I have good days and I have bad days, and I have good weeks and I have bad weeks. And so how does this fit into me being good soil? I mean, does this mean I'm not good soil if I'm having a bad day or I'm having a bad week or I'm not everything I should be? Hey, friends, the key is what Jesus said about good soil. Let's go back to verse 15.

What did he say? He said, good soil holds fast to the word of the gospel and steadfastly bears fruit. Would you notice there is time built into that last sentence? Holds on and steadfastly bears fruit. Folks, time sorts out the soils. You understand what I'm saying to you?

Sometimes you can't really tell what soil is what, but give it time and time will sort out the soils. Because if we're really good soil, even though we may have a good day or a bad day, even though we may have a good week or a bad week, even though we may not be everything that we wish we were and that God wants us to be, over a period of time, we steadfastly hold on to the word and we keep producing some fruit. We may not produce a hundredfold every day, but there's always fruit and there's always the witness of the Spirit. Romans 8 16, the Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And even in a bad day, the Spirit of God is still telling you that. You know that.

Listen, I don't believe it's possible for good soil to go flat line. I've been a Christian 40 years and you know there have been periods in there where I tried to go flat line and said, Lord, I've had it. I don't want to do this anymore.

Not my faith, but just I was fed up with all the trials He was sending into my life. And God said, Oh, no, you're not. No, no, no, you're not.

Not in my universe you're not. You belong to me and you're not going flat line and I'm going to see to it. And you know what, friends?

I don't believe a Christian can go flat line for a year, two years, three years, four years with no spiritual interest and no spiritual fruit. Something's wrong, drastically wrong. That's not good soil. Good soil steadfastly bears fruit.

There's always some. And so if you're here today and you're saying, gosh, Lon, man, you've really scared me. You know, maybe I'm not really good soil because I had a pretty bad day yesterday.

You know, I'm here to say, hey, friend, you can't judge it on having a good day or a bad day. You judge it on whether you hold on to the word and you steadfastly over time bear fruit. And if you're good soil, you may look like a sine wave, but nonetheless, friend, there's fruit running right through the middle of it for all the years you've been a believer.

That's good soil. Doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for more, but it certainly means that we ought to relax and say thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Well, this has been a tough message, a hard message. You know what?

That's good. We need hard messages sometime. We need to be forced to do self-examination sometime. And we need to make sure God knows we need to make sure we're good soil.

It's too big a risk not to. May God help us. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, wow. I mean, this parable sticks it to us right between the eyes. And yet, thank you for doing that, Lord, because if we're soil one, two or three, we need to be exposed to ourselves so that we can get that before you, we can seek Christ, and you can change our soil. And, Lord, even if we're soil four, we need to bring before you the issue of how much fruit we're willing to pay the price to produce. And, Lord, I pray that you would bring all of us to the point that we will pay any price to produce maximum fruit for the Lord Jesus in our lives. Lord, take your word today and stuff it deep in our heart and change the very way we see ourselves and the very way we live because of our contact with the Word of God today. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And what do God's people say? Amen. Amen.